Covid, unreliable scholarships & student suicides

Kamalakar Shete, an MCom student from Ahmednagar, has been calling the social welfare department twice a week for months now. Eligible for the Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Swadhar Yojana applicable to SC students, he is yet to receive the scholarship worth Rs 51,000 for the 2019-20 academic year. “I am already done with my final-year examinations but the scholarship amount is yet to come. The department says they have no funds due to the pandemic but not a year has passed when the scholarship amount was ever disbursed on time. It would always come after the academic year had ended,” says Shete, adding that he finds it difficult to keep asking his parents for money as they struggle to make ends meet. Shete’s parents survive on farming a small one-acre plot and their annual income is around Rs 50,000.

Scholarship delays, both at the central and state levels, have become a regular feature of student life for many. Recently, Lady Shri Ram College for Women student Aishwarya Reddy died by suicide saying she didn’t want to burden her parents with educational expenses. Reddy was eligible for INSPIRE scholarship money but did not get it as, according to the Department for Science and Technology, it had not received the requisite paperwork which, they say, is a simple process of submitting three documents.