Jalandhar, July 3
Agitated at the red-tapism of the ruling state government in disbursing grants for the minority scholarship scheme, scores of minority students have decided not to apply for the scheme this year. Majority of the students who applied last year are yet to get the scholarship amount.

The minority groups today claimed that the state government has not disbursed the full amount till date.

This, despite the fact that Chief Secretary SC Aggarwal had directed the Finance Department to release Rs 35 crore sanctioned by the Union Ministry of Minority Affairs to 1,42,600 minority students.

The Chief Secretary had convened a meeting of senior officials of the Finance, Education, Social Welfare and Technical Education Departments on June 2.

Reacting against the inordinate delay, minority affairs activists today held a meeting in this regard and decided to gherao the District Education Officers (DEOs) in all the districts of the state as the tardy functioning lead to the failure of the scheme.

“It is a pity that minority students are yet to receive the benefits under this scheme. Why should students apply for this scheme when minority students are not getting the benefits?” maintained Sister Amla from Navjeevan Charitable Society.

Tarsem Peter, the President of Pendu Mazdoor Union said owing to the indifferent attitude of the state government authorities, scores of minority students are not applying for this scholarship.

“This is a blot in the name of the state government. The parents of minority students are dejected by the apathetic attitude of the authorities concerned. And not many of them are willing to apply this year,” he said.

Last year too, minority students at districts Jalandhar, Amritsar and Gurdaspur had to run from pillar to post to get their forms submitted, he added.

This irony has been epitomised in the fact that the district education authorities did not found any worth of sending the proposal for the upcoming sportspersons in 2009-10.

The scheme was aimed at promoting sports among the students of government schools by offering scholarships to those students who bagged the first three positions in the block-level inter-school games.

Every year, school games are concluded in November and the education authorities have to forward the list of upcoming sportspersons to the office of Department of Welfare.

However, the district education authorities did not send the list of such students even after the closing of both financial and academic year 2009-10.

Confirming the report, Rajinder Singh, District Social Welfare Officer, said the list of students, seeking benefits under the said scheme was awaited by the department and money could not be availed from higher authorities in the absence of the list.

The scheme runs under district plan and budget for the scheme is released by the District Development and Planning Board.

As the scholarship is given for two to three years to each student, this act of the education authorities rendered hundreds of students to avail monetary benefits under the scheme.

However, District Education Officer Joginder Dass said the Welfare Department did not demand proposal from the Education Department.

However, sources revealed that the department had asked for the list during the last academic session.

There were 395 beneficiaries of the scheme in 2008-09. In that year, beneficiaries suffered due to apathetic approach of the state government as the district education authorities sought Rs 1.99 lakh to give scholarships, which was not released by the government.

Nawanshahr, July 3
In a bizarre incident, a head constable, Sukhdev Singh, alias Sukha, of Bains village, who was made to give his attendance in police lines for allegedly enacting a drama of his kidnapping about two months ago, virtually went on a rampage on Friday.

First, the errant cop along with his father Gian Singh allegedly attacked Sarwan Singh and his NRI son Charanjit Singh at Bains village and threatened them to kill. A case under sections 307, 506 and 34 of the IPC and 25, 27, 54 and 59 of the Arms Act against the cop and his father at Sadar police station on the basis of the complaint registered by Sarwan Singh.

Later, when a police party raided their house situated at Mohalla Shanti Nagar here on Friday night, the cop fired two rounds in air with his revolver, threatened to kill, pushed away the driver and fled away with the police jeep. He abandoned the police jeep near Mehli police naka and absconded.

It is worthwhile to mention here that Sukhdev Singh had gone missing in a mysterious way in the month of April this year. His father had got an FIR registered against Sarwan Singh and his son Charanjit Singh and Manjit Kaur accusing them of kidnapping his son due to an on going enmity over a land dispute.

During investigation, it came to light that the kidnapping was an enacted drama by Sukhdev Singh to settle scores with Sarwan Singh and his son. He was asked to give attendance in police lines. Action to cancel the FIR registered against Sarwan Singh and his son was initiated.

SSP Narinder Bhargav said the police party exercised restrain as the house where the errant cop was hiding was situated in thickly populated area and any retaliation could have proved harmful. The errant cop has been put under suspension. The police has started investigation and the SSP exuded confidence that the errant cop would be arrested soon.