Dimapur, Nov. 01 (EMN): An organisation representing students in the eastern region of Nagaland has served the state’s government a week to release their academic scholarships in full. It is informed that the central government has already released funds if not for ‘manipulative policies’ by the authorities in concern.
The Eastern Nagaland College Students’ Union (ENCSU) issued on Nov. 1 a copy of a representation addressed to the chief minister. The union has demanded that the officials responsible for the alleged mismanagement be penalised.
The ENCSU noted what it called the ‘lukewarm attitude’ of the authorities. ‘The ENCSU is compelled to demand your immediate action and subsequently release the scholarship for the current year 2016-2017 in full amount within 7 days period,’ the representation stated.
According to the group, the Ministry of Tribal Affairs had released the first instalment of funds on Dec. 28 2016 totalling Rs. 13, 44,00,000 for Nagaland.
‘However, the department couldn’t submit the Utilization Certificate to the ministry as desired even after the lapse of more than eight months,’ the representation stated.
“Accordingly, the ENCSU had demanded before the department of Higher Education, govt. of Nagaland the responsibility behind for detaining the money for eight months, which subsequently delays in disbursement of scholarship in time and failing to submit the Utilization Certificate to the concerned ministry,” the ENCSU stated.
The department is said to have “mentioned in numerous course of discussion and the director had also confidently justified the demands of the union in print media citing the same reason. The ENCSU had summarily issued a rejoinder against the director’s claim and demanded to produce the directive copy issued by the union ministry within four days, which the department had miserably failed to validate their claim.”
Further, the organisation stated, the department submitted ‘the proposal of scholarship’ for ST students in Nagaland for 2016-2017 on Oct. 28 2016 even before the last date of submission of scholarship forms. For said matter, the union said to have invited the department to “clarify as to how it can be possible for the department to finalize the final list of the beneficiary even before the closing date of submission.”
“The department of Higher Education had mishandled and mismanaged the scholarship scheme and it has become the tradition of the department,” the union declared and said that it will ‘not tolerate such manipulative policy to continue.’
The union has demanded that the government take immediate corrective measure and ‘punish all the erring officials according to appropriate law.’
‘The ENCSU regrets to inform you that failing to meet our demands in a stipulate time will lead to take our own course of action,’ the representation added.
