The All Manipur Students' Union (AMSU) staged a protest rally on Friday from its headquarters at Thangmeiband, Imphal West condemning the authority concerned for failing in disbursal of scholarship for economically backward students.

Addressing the media persons at the sidelines of the protest, AMSU general secretary Thongam Bikramjit said the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment has been providing scholarship to Other Backward Class (OBC), Economically Backward Class (EBC), Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) students through the Department of MOBC and SC, Government of Manipur. However, the student community of these sections of society did not receive the amount on time.

The students have not received their scholarships for three consecutive sessions of 2018-2019, 2019-2020 and 2020-2021. AMSU has urged to release the scholarship at the earliest but the state government has failed to do so till date, he added.

“Such irresponsible acts of the state government demoralises the students affecting them in their studies,” said Bikramjit.

He further said that the staff of MOBC and SC department have informed that the scholarship amount will be disbursed by November 15 as money has been released from the Finance department and has reached the treasury section. However, the deadline given by the department is not acceptable and the amount must be released at the earliest as the union has been urging several times.