CHANDIGARH: The Joint Association of Colleges (JAC) on Sunday rejected the Dr BR Ambedkar Post Matric SC Scholarship scheme launched by the Punjab government for 2020-21, saying that the government is yet to clear the pending scholarship amounts for the last several years.
Chief minister Amarinder Singh had announced the new scholarship scheme for the Scheduled Caste students on Saturday.
The body demanded that the government first clear the scholarship amounts for the years 2016-17 (Rs 415.60 crore), 2017-18 (Rs 538 crore), 2018-19 (Rs 437.19 crore) and 2019-20 (Rs 450 crore).
JAC president Jagjit Singh, chairman Gurmeet Singh Dhaliwal and association’s co-chairman Anshu Kataria said out of the 1,650 unaided colleges of Punjab, majority of them have turned into NPAs because of the four-year delay in the post matric scholarship and even in the new policy, nothing has been mentioned about the pending scholarships.
They said in the new policy, the government has imposed the condition of 40% contribution from private unaided colleges without taking JAC into confidence. tnn