Tuensang, November 1 (MExN): The Eastern Nagaland College Students’ Union (ENCSU) has demanded that the Government of Nagaland take immediate action and release the scholarships for the year 2016-17 in full amount within a period of 7 days.
The ENCSU decided this after considering the “genuine grievances” of the students’ community as well as the “lukewarm attitude” of the department concerned.
This was stated in a representation sent to the Chief Minister of Nagaland State through the Chief Secretary of State by the ENCSU President, M Longre Chang, and General Secretary, Wangnei C Jessuhu.
The ENCSU asked the CM’s office to consider the following and deliver justice to the students of Eastern Nagaland.
That the Central Ministry of Tribal Affairs (Education Section) had released the first Installment on December, 28, 2016 amounting to Rs. 13, 44,00,000/- in respect of Nagaland State. “However, the Department couldn’t submit the Utilization Certificate to the Ministry as desired even after the lapse of more than 8 months,” informed the ENCSU.
Accordingly, the ENCSU had demanded that Nagaland State Department of Higher Education (DHE) to take responsibility for “detaining the money for 8 months, which subsequently delayed the disbursement of scholarship in time” and for “failing to submit the Utilization Certificate to the concerned Ministry.”
The ENCSU observed that the DHE had “also mentioned in numerous course of discussion and the Director had also confidently justified the demands of the Union in Print Media citing the same reason.” The ENCSU had issued a rejoinder against the Director’s claims and “demanded to produce the Directive Copy issued by the Union Ministry within 4 days, which the Department had miserably failed to validate their claim.”
According to the ENCSU representation, the DHE had “also submitted the Proposal of Scholarship to ST Students of Nagaland for 2016-2017 on October 28, 2016, even before the last date of submission of Scholarship forms by the Students. Therefore, the Union had invited the Department to clarify as to how it can be possible for the Department to finalize the final list of the beneficiary even before the closing date of Submission.”
Finally, the ENCSU accused the DHE of ‘mishandling and mismanaging’ the scholarship scheme and stated this has become a “tradition” for the DHE.
The Union maintained that it will “not tolerate such manipulative policy to continue.”
It demanded that the Government of Nagaland “take immediate corrective measure and punish all the erring officials as per the appropriate law.”
Failing to meet the demands, the ENCSU stated that it will take its “own course of action.”
