Bhattal flays state govt for sitting on grants
Friday, 16/09/2011
http://112.196.11.34/dailypost/Details.aspx?id=4388&boxid=56908&uid=&dat=2011-09-16
Leader of Opposition in the Punjab Assembly Rajinder Kaur Bhattal has blamed the Punjab Government for stepmotherly treatment towards central grants. She strongly criticised the Punjab Government for not distributing the scholarship money to three lakh students of minority community, funds for which were provided by the Centre under various schemes.
Bhattal said in the pre-matric scholarship scheme for minority community students of government and private schools, the Centre had released a whopping amount of Rs 25 crore as central share for implementation of the scheme. She said the Punjab finance department showed utter callousness and failed to release even a single paisa under this scheme, thus denying the students their rightful due. It is shameful that the state government has woken up now and has sought applications from students for the grant of scholarship, she added.
She further many other schemes were also not being properly implemented even when the central government grants were lying with the state government. In the post-matric scholarship scheme for minority students, the Centre had provided Rs 14.83 crore, but the state government has released only Rs 6.87 crore for the purpose.
Bhattal further said that in the merit-cum-means scholarship scheme for minority students, the Centre gave Rs 7.12 crore but the inept Badal government released only Rs 5.53 crore. Under the post-matric scholarship scheme for SC students, the state released an amount of Rs 67 crore while the Central Government had contributed Rs 73 crore.
Bhattal blamed both CM and education minister Sewa Singh Sekhwan for not spending the central grants in the education sector.
