Bengaluru: Fee to get scholarships! Students go up in arms
The students have now decided to approach the minorities department to address the issue.
Bengaluru: The students from an engineering college in the city are up in arms against the institute’s move to demand a fee to avail the post-matric scholarship for minorities, provided by the state government. They claimed no other institution was charging such a fee. The students of East West Institute of Technology (EWIT) alleged that the college authorities have made it mandatory that an amount of Rs 1,000 should be paid by each student to avail the cheque to avail state funding.
Darshan (name changed), a third year mechanical engineering student alleged this ‘illegal’ fee collection was a scam as it amounts to a huge sum.
“We have our friends in other colleges across the state availing the same scholarship, but we are the only ones who are forced to pay this amount in order to get our annual scholarship amount. This is unfair,” he said.
The students alleged that the college authorities have never provided any clear reply whenever they took up the issue. “We had approached the principal, but he redirected us to scholarships section in our college. The officials said that this was being collected as per the orders of the Principal. Neither any notice nor a signed circular has been issued on this until now from the college, which clearly shows that the entire process is suspicious,” said Vidya (name changed), a computer science student.
When contacted, EWIT Principal and Director Dr K. Channakeshavalu told Deccan Chronicle that he was unaware of such a fact and the matter should be clarified with the official concerned at the scholarship section during working hours.
The yearly scholarship is provided to the students from the State Government’s Directorate of Minorities and it ranges from Rs 16,000 to Rs 40,000 as per reservation incentives.
The state government had set up this scheme to encourage and provide financial assistance to help minorities continue higher education and enhance their employability. The students have now decided to approach the minorities department to address the issue.