GUWAHATI: A section of students of Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) campus here have resumed their protest against the withdrawal of post-graduate scholarships to those belonging to “underprivileged” category even as the institute’s administration has decided to include them under a fund meant for the general category.
As many as 62 students under the GoI-PMS (Government of India Post Matric Scholarship) Students’ Association, belonging to underprivileged families (including ST/SC/OBC) with an annual income less than Rs 2lakh, had enrolled in the 2018-19 academic session.
“We resumed the protest which the association had started in March last year over withdrawal of scholarships. The assurances given last year by the institute’s administration have remained unfulfilled. We are demanding complete waiver of fee which our seniors from the association were entitled to earlier,” M. Wangsu, a member of the association, told The Shillong Times on Thursday.
The association is also demanding implementation of the National Commission for Scheduled Tribe recommendations (given in July last year) besides a mechanism for affordable education for marginalised sections.
“We are in a state of uncertainty as our families cannot afford the annual fee of Rs 70,000. The enrolment of GoI-PMS students has also come down after the discontinuation of the fee waiver. We will continue our protest and even resort to a hunger strike later if our demands are not met,” he said.
The institute administration however said that steps have been initiated to enhance the student aid fellowship for non ST/SC students by about 50 per cent to 70 per cent to extend the benefits to GoI-PMS students.
“We are committed to our core value of honouring rights of these students. Even as the government has rolled back its scheme meant for GoI-PMS students a couple of years back, TISS has taken an initiative for substantial enhancement of fund allotment under the student aid fellowship. Only last month, we had told them that the fellowship will cover them as well but they will need to apply for it to avail of the benefit,” Kalpana Sarathy, deputy director (acting) told The Shillong Times on Thursday.
The institute’s administration and the association had a meeting on Thursday evening when the latter was reassured of the benefit under the fellowship.
However, the association later told this correspondent that it was not convinced and would continue the strike.
“Until 2014, the GoI-PMS students were entitled to tuition, dining hall, hostel fee waiver even though the funds received by the institute from respective state governments by way of scholarship was far less than the fee to be paid by students. However, following the government’s Direct Benefit Transfer (DTB) scheme introduced from 2014-15, the scholarship money has been directly remitted to the students’ bank accounts, who were then required to transfer the same to the institute,” a statement from the institute, said.
“The institute had an accumulated deficit of more than Rs 20 crore on this account and it had become unsustainable. In May 2017, the institute decided that the PMS students also need to pay the actual charges,” it added.
There are 262 students enrolled across streams in the current session at TISS Guwahati, which also has a mandate for reserving 66 per cent seats for students of North Eastern states.
“The scheme rollback is entirely a policy decision of the government from where the funds come to the institute,” Sarathy said.