No government relief for stranded students in Guwahati

Our Reporter
Dimapur, May 1 (EMN): Student bodies, particularly those outside Nagaland, have been contributing and helping the government in identifying those in need of relief and keeping a track of the students during this lockdown. However, the Naga Students’ Union in Guwahati (NSUG) informed that they haven’t received financial relief from the government, even when approached repeatedly.

Speaking to Eastern Mirror, an executive member of NSUG, Nikito Swu, said that the students who are currently stranded in Guwahati haven’t received any kind of financial aid or relief from the government till date.

“Since we have a government, we have hopes and expectations in our government at times like this. However, we have been discouraged because there was no positive response from the government,” Swu shared.

Citing the relief fund which has been initiated by the chief minister of Nagaland to help citizens stranded outside, Swu said that the majority of them were ‘yet to avail the money,’ and only a few of them had received it so far.
Stating that there were approximately 200 students who are stranded in and around Guwahati, he said, apart from the few students, only the Nagaland House at Guwahati had received INR 2 lakh from the government till date.

He said the student body also submitted a letter to the Assam government asking for some help in matters of rent and fees ‘as most of students there were running, or almost, out of money.’

Nagaland House, Guwahati to the rescue

According to him, the DRC of the Guwahati Nagaland House has been supporting the students by coordinating with the student bodies there since the beginning.
He also informed more than 60 of them, who are currently stranded at Guwahati while on their way back to Nagaland from different parts of India, were under the care of DRC at Nagaland House.

The president of NSUG, Hokiqhe Zhimomi also spoke to this Reporter and acknowledged the continuous effort from the state government, but added that there has been some kind of negligence from the government.

Zhimomi said some of the Naga student bodies outside of Nagaland, including NSUG, didn’t receive any aid from the government all because of ‘some issue’. He however refused to explain what those ‘issues’ were.

He said that Nagaland House and the student bodies play different roles at different levels.

“It is the Naga students’ bodies who identify the students, bring up their grievances and take care of problems during the fight against Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdown, outside the state,” he said.