Kerala: No Aadhaar, no stipend' causes uproar

Thiruvananthapuram: RIGHTS, a research group working for the educational rights of the marginalised has submitted a complaint to Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe development minister A. K. Balan against the decision to deny stipend to SC/ST students for not entering Aadhaar numbers along with their applications. This was following the information posted in the Kerala e-grants website that over 20,000 SC/ST students have been denied scholarships in 2012-13, 2013-14 and 2014-15 for not entering Aadhar numbers.

As per the information posted on the e-grants website, 3,162 students were denied scholarships in 2012-13, 11,002 in 2013-14 and 5,984 students in 2014-15 for not entering their Aadhaar numbers in the application forms. V. B. Ajayakumar, executive director of RIGHTS, told Deccan Chronicle that demands were that the government should withdraw the order making Aadhaar compulsory for educational benefits. The denied stipend should be distributed to students at the earliest.

The number of students who were denied stipends will increase if the statistics of 2015-2016 and 2016-17 are also received. Moreover, there are Supreme Court verdicts issued in August 2015, and also this month against making Aadhaar mandatory for educational benefits, Mr Ajayakumar said. There are also doubts over the misuse of Aadhar details. There were reports about personal details of over a lakh students enrolled for Aadhar getting leaked, Mr Ajayakumar said.