Raising serious questions over the implementation of the government schemes

Mumbai: Raising serious questions over the implementation of the government schemes, a Bhiwandi based NGO on Wednesday claimed that despite thousands of students applying for the government scholarship from the minority concentrated city near Mumbai, just 120 of them have actually been benefited from the said scheme so far.

"In the last four years, more than eighteen thousand students from Bhiwandi have applied for the Pre-Matric scholarship. But so far only 120 of them have benefited from the government scheme and have received the scholarship amount", Tanzeem Ansari, president of Movement for Peace and Justice (MPJ), Bhiwandi said while addressing a press conference on Wednesday.

He also said that in most of the cases the students have received confirmation that their scholarships had been sanctioned. Yet they had not received any amount.

"What's more surprising is that when we contact the concerned department for details, they only give information about the number of students whose scholarships have been sanctioned. But they do not have or do not want to give any record of how many students have actually received the scholarships", Ansari said.

Ansari also alleged that the concerned department in Bhiwandi had always been negligent vis-à-vis the government schemes for the minorities. He alleged that initially they offered only limited number of application forms. After local MLA Rasheed Tahir Momin intervened, number of forms increased but rejections also increased with the same ratio.

"On enquiry, it is said that the forms were filled incorrectly. But the fact is that with the help of teachers and social workers, we had run the campaigns to make sure that the forms have no mistakes", Ansari said.

The year-wise details of the application forms, according to Ansari are: 1449 students applied for scholarship in 2008-09, 28 got the scholarship. Of the total 3029 who applied in 2009-10, only 38 got the scholarship. In 2010-11, 54 students out of 6965 could get the scholarship. In 2011-12, a total of 8336 students applied for the student but so far no one has received any confirmation.

Bhiwandi, a minority concentrated city located about 50 kms from Mumbai has 87 Municipal and 80 private schools with an estimated student strength of 1,01,466. Pre-Matric scholarship is part of the Prime Minister's 15-point program launched by the Congress led UPA government for the empowerment of the minorities.