Times of India: Ahmedabad:
Friday, May 24, 2013.
As many as
3,125 dalit students in Ahmedabad district did not receive their scholarship
amount from the state government. The facts came to the fore through an RTI
filed by Navsarjan Trust in July 2010. Approximately Rs 3 crore have been
siphoned from the money meant for the dalit students. These allegations were
made by Kirit Rathod of Navsarjan Trust on Thursday.
According to
the information received through RTI, scholarship applications of 1,613
students are still pending. The other 1,512 students were denied the
scholarship due to lack of funds in the institute.
The data in
the RTI comprises only of ITI, science, arts, engineering and medical colleges.
The information commission failed to provide the information for the dalit kids
studying in schools.
"This is
the data of one district and only of colleges; the scam could run into crores
if the data from all districts are collected," said Kirit Rathod, program
director, Navsarjan. He added, "Our CM makes big promises about spending
money for scheduled castes, if it's true then why these students didn't get
their due."
According to
the rules laid by the Planning Commission, every state has to allocate a
certain amount of budget for the welfare of the dalits based on their
population. In Gujarat, dalits constitute 7.9% of the total population, but the
money allocated for them in this year's budget is only 5.9%.
"Not
only the government is cheating dalits, it was not even ready to reveal the
information regarding the scholarship," said Rathod.
The first RTI
was filed in May 2010; after it was rejected by department of social justice,
Rathod filed second RTI in July 2010, which was accepted.
After the
intervention of state information commissioner Balwant Singh and a wait of
almost three years, the department gave half-baked information. The RTI reply
by government has no mention of students and amount of scholarships allocated.
"In the
full page ad on Ambedkar Jayanti, Modi made big claims about the welfare of
scheduled castes, but it's all a farce," said Rathod.
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