Notice to TN, Centre on release of funds to SC,ST students

Chennai: An advocate has approached Madras High Court to direct the Union government to immediately release funds of Rs 1,765.62 crore to SC students and Rs 31.2 crore to ST students enabling them to pursue their higher education. He also made a plea for direction to the state government to take effective steps to get funds from the Union government.

The First Bench, comprising Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice Abdul Quddhose, before whom the PIL filed by advocate D. Ashok Kumar came up for hearing, ordered notice to the Union and state governments and posted to February 9 further hearing of the case.

Petitioner's counsel S. Sathiachandran submitted that taking note of the poor higher education ratio among the members of SC and ST, who lack sufficient funds to pursue higher education, the state government announced in 2012 that the SC/ST students, whose parent or guardian's income was below Rs 2 lakh per year, the tuition fees for their higher education in Self Financing (including minority institutions) colleges, would be borne by the state government under the Central Government Post-Matric Scholarship programme.

As such every year about 1.50 lakh students from SC and ST get the benefits of the scheme. While so, the department of Adi Dravidar and Tribal Welfare issued an order dated August 11, 2017 amending the 2012 G.O. As per the amendment, the SC/ST students who joined under the management quota in Self Financing colleges can get scholarship amount only as much being charged for the students under the government quota fixed tuition fees in the state, he added.

He said as a consequence of the amendment, several students who could not get admission in the government quota cannot also join the self-financing colleges who always charge more than the government quota fixed tuition fee. Hence, their educational dreams have been shattered and nipped in the bud. Moreover, a newspaper has published a news under the caption “1.4 lakh students denied hall ticket over unpaid fees”. Due to the G.O several students are now in street and they could not pay the fees amount.

The state government said that the central government has not yet released Rs 1,546 crore meant for distribution of Post-Matric Scholarship and the state government has written a letter to the central government seeking release of the said amount.

Information received under RTI query revealed that from 2012 to 2017, Rs 1,765.62 crore ought to have been released to SC students and Rs 31.2 crore to the ST students. But the same has not yet been released, Sathiachandran added.