State’s fault, not central govt: Bernard counters CM on pending scholarships

TURA, Feb 17: BJP leader and MDC from Tura, Bernard Marak, on Monday downplayed Chief Minister Conrad Sangma’s statement of blaming the central government for the delay in the disbursement of students’ scholarship, claiming that it was not the centre that was not releasing the funds but the state government which was not forwarding the list of beneficiaries along with the 10% funds, in time.
Earlier, Chief Minister Conrad Sangma expressed helplessness on the matter stating that in the case of students’ scholarship, the amount was directly sent by the centre to the beneficiaries’ (students’) account.
“In the case of old age pension, muster roll and other things, we can give an advance whether the money is released from the centre or not. But in scholarships, the funds are linked directly from the Centre to the individual. So if an advance is given and the centre also releases the scholarship amount, there is no way for the beneficiary to get the money back to us,” the Chief Minister had said.
Reacting to the Chief Minister’s statement on Monday, the Tura MDC maintained that the case was not as claimed but that the state government was failing to complete the necessary process in time.
“The Centre will not deposit the money into the beneficiaries account until and unless the list of the beneficiaries and 10% is forwarded to the centre. Adding 90% to that 10%, 100% comes to the beneficiaries’ account. So the question is, is the state forwarding the list in time? Is the state contributing the 10% in time? I think this is where the problem is. The 10% and the beneficiaries list are not being forwarded to the centre in time,” Bernard maintained.