The All Manipur Muslim Students Organisation (AMMSO) on Monday demanded immediate payment of due scholarships for students selected through the Minorities and Other Backward Classes (MOBC) Online Scholarship Management System.
The pending scholarship amount runs up to a total of more than one crore rupees for over 15,000 OBC students, AMMSO stated in a release signed by information and publicity secretary Sophia Sahania.
The state government had already received the funds from the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, New Delhi, and the state Finance department has been withholding the funds instead of disbursing it to students, AMMSO alleged.
While students selected in 2019 have not received their scholarships for the 2nd phase of the OBC scholarship scheme, students selected in 2020 have not received even a single penny yet, it stated. Such an act on the part of the state government is highly condemnable since it is tantamount to robbing students of their rights, it added.
The state governments should also provide clarifications for the failure to pay the scholarships, and the due scholarships should be forwarded to the bank accounts of the students at the earliest, AMMSO further stated. It further appealed to other students’ organisations of the state to look into the issue and launch joint agitations in case of the state government's failure to fulfil the demands of the students’ organisation.