Parents spend Rs 500 for kids' scholarships of Rs 250

BHADRAK: Fork out Rs 500 for a scholarship of Rs 250!
Students of government-run and recognised schools and colleges from lower primary to postgraduate level in the district are being subjected to spend that amount of money towards documentation after it was announced to provide scholarship to OBC, SEBC (socially economically backward caste) and minority communities.
The government will offer Rs 250, Rs 400 and Rs 500 per annum as scholarship to students with less than annual parental income of Rs 44,500 from Classes I to V, Classes VI to VII and high school, respectively. Besides, Rs 500 would also be provided as ad hoc grant to both pre- and postmatriculate students.
Though the declaration has enthused students and parents much, but surprisingly the expenditure being incurred towards obtaining relevant certificates from government offices to qualify the eligibility criteria surpass the scholarship amount.
Certificates for income, residential, caste among others to be issued from the tehsil office require a minimum of Rs 300 for an applicant apart from expenses o two passport size photographs. The students from far-off places also spend a few hundred more, as they run for a number of times to the tehsil to finally get the certificates.
"I have spent Rs 200 to get the income and resdential certificates from the tehsil, Rs 100 towards affidavits, Rs 40 for users fee and Rs 10 each for an application form. I don't find any justification in spending more than Rs 300 to get the scholarship amount of Rs 250," rued Gobinda Nayak, an electrician whose ward reads in Class IV. Many parents have also complained that application forms were being charged five times more than the original price by the vendors, keeping in view the huge requirement.
Moreover , according to sources, it is still not clear that whether the government will provide scholarship to all the OBC and SEBC students or give it selectively to meritorious students. The duration of the schlorship is also not known. Though the students of the minority community are required to have a minimum of 50 per cent of marks in the exams to become eligible for the scholarship, no criteria has so far been fixed for the OBCand SEBC students.
"We have circulated the information of scholarship to students through BDO's office through headmasters and principals concerned. We are yet to know the criteria of awarding the schlorship in detail," said Seshadeba Behera, the Bhadrak district welfare officer.