Early Times Report
Jammu, Apr 22: A large number of students belonging to Scheduled Tribe category lodged their protest against the Tribal Affair department, Jammu and Kashmir over delay in disbursement of scholarship at Directorate of Tribal Affair, Jammu here today.
Under the banner of All Ladakh Student Association (ALSAJ) and in collaboration with All Kargil Student Association Jammu (AKSAJ), Student Association of Ladakh Jammu (SAOLA), All Zanaskar Student Union (AZSU), hundreds of Ladakhi students studying in various institutions of Jammu assembled at Directorate and staged a peaceful protest against the non-payment of their scholarship award by the state government. Addressing the reporters, ALSAJ President Nawang Tundup said that they were mainly protesting the non-payment of their scholarship award for last three years (2010-11, 2011-12 and 2012-13) for with Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs already sanctioned the required amount. "The main reason for this protest is that Directorate has refused to pay us our scholarship award for 2010 to 2013 which is due for and it has not been paid up till this time" he said. Condemning state government's inability to pay the money he said, "Students have not received their scholarships and several meetings had been held with the concern Social Welfare Minister, officials but no action has been taken so far." "I received the scholarship way back in 2010, when I was in the first year. Since then nothing has come my way. Despite approaching college administration time and again, nothing has happened till date," said Stanzin Kawang , a final-year student of GGM Science College. Later, amid slogans like 'we want Justice', 'pay our dues timely' agitating students also 'Gherao' the officials of Tribal Affairs and locked them office for several hours. After the intervention of Trikuta Nagar police and written assurance from director Tribal Affair Ali Raza, in which the departments agree to clear all dues of scholarships by end of May, 2014, students suspend the agitation but retaliated that they will resume protest if government will not pay their money in stipulated time. |
