SC scholarships - House panel grills govt., States over ‘gaps’. Public Accounts Committee chairman K C Venugopal on Thursday said committee has unanimously decided to initiate privilege proceedings against chief secretaries of six states - Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and Bihar - for not showing up for meeting on scholarships for Scheduled Caste candidates.
"We had an important meeting on an audit para relating to the SC pre-matric and post-matric scholarship. Huge delay happened in disbursement of scholarships of SC students... Unfortunately, chief secretaries... were not even present. Our committee took serious note of that," Venugopal said. Committee unanimously decided to give privilege motion to Speaker.
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SC pre-matric and post-matric scholarships are central sector schemes where Centre shares 60% cost, states 40%. Objective to increase enrolment and reduce dropout among SC students. CAG audit found delays of 8-14 months in disbursal, ghost beneficiaries, and utilisation certificates pending for three years.
For students, delay means dropout. Data from Ministry of Social Justice shows 1.2 crore SC students covered annually, but average delay in MP was 11 months, in UP 9 months, in Punjab 14 months. Many forced to take private loans to pay fees. Scholarship amount - Rs 12,000 to Rs 25,000 per year plus fees - already low compared to private college fees crossing Rs 1 lakh.
For Centre-state politics, PAC move rare. Privilege motion against chief secretaries signals Parliament asserting oversight over executive. States blame Centre for delayed release of central share - Centre blames states for not providing Aadhaar-seeded bank accounts and faulty verification.
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Analytically, scholarship delays reflect deeper malaise DBT supposed to remove leakages, but authentication failures and bank account mismatches have excluded genuine beneficiaries. Similar to SIR debate where Aadhaar mismatch led to voter flagging, here Aadhaar mismatch leads to student exclusion. Venugopal, Congress MP, leading PAC is also Opposition's attempt to keep social justice agenda alive amid SIR controversy. If chief secretaries forced to appear, they must explain why utilisation certificates not submitted since 2023. For 2026-27 budget, government increased SC scholarship allocation by 15% to Rs 5,900 crore, but without fixing delivery, allocation remains on paper. Question: will privilege motion speed funds or just add procedure?
Tags: #SCScholarship #PAC #KCVenugopal #CAG #SocialJustice #ParliamentPanel #PrivilegeMotion #DBT #Education #DalitStudents