Scholarship Scam in HP: Students Suffer as the Governments Remain Apathetic

The preliminary investigation of the scholarship scam in Himachal Pradesh has revealed that the multi-billion graft continued with impunity with active involvement of private universities and corrupt officials of the Education Department. The scam was unearthed after the tribal students from the Lahaul Spiti district complained that they have not been receiving their scholarships for last five years. Initial findings also state that one institution had applied for scholarships for 2,000 students hailing from the scheduled castes, and one bank account was used for 181 students. 

Local reports suggest that the private universities would enroll students from the tribal areas by procuring their Aadhaar cards and other documents along with their signatures. Then, their details will be linked with a bank account number where the address column will have institution's location and contact number section would be filled with phone numbers of the employees of the institution. The extent of scam's prevalence could be gauged from the fact that several bank accounts were found to be located in Haryana and Karnataka. After immense pressure, the BJP government has recommended for an enquiry by the Central Bureau of Investigation. 

Infuriated by the large-scale scam, the students and the activists say that the students from the marginalised sections of the societies are paying the price for successive governments collective failures. Anil Negi, a tribal student studying at Himachal Pradesh University, says that the majority of the students studying in various universities of the state have not been getting the scholarships for last two years. 

He said, "Scholarships are very important to the poor students. The eligible students approached the officials of the Directorate of Higher Education, which is responsible for disbursal of scholarships, numerous times after they did not receive funds. But they have been turning away the requests citing technical problems. The whole system for applying for scholarships has been functioning in online mode since 2013. When the offline process was in place, we could check with officials if our forms had any discrepancy. But it is not possible with the present system. While some students, who hail from the middle class, live with very little means, the poor students are compelled to live in distress." 

Commenting on the role of the private universities in the scam, he said, "The local students are attracted to private universities for a few reasons. The students, who are not very serious about their studies but want to get a degree, enroll themselves with these universities and this is where they play on the vulnerabilities of the students." 

He also said that the fees for some of the courses are very low. "The state has been witnessing a consistent decrease in the number of non-subsidised seats in the universities. For example, the Himachal Pradesh University has 120 seats in Master of Computer Applications (MCA), out of which only 30 are subsidised." 

Negi also underlines that the failure has hit the students severely. "Post-graduate students get the annual scholarships of Rs 12,000, whereas the students enrolled in M. Phil courses get Rs 20,000 per annum. Since the scholarships have not been allotted, some students eat in hostels only. They eat their breakfasts and dinner in the hostel and tend to skip their lunch. Similarly, their studies are also affected, as they cannot buy their books and depend heavily on the books from the libraries. Books are issued for 14 days, so they have to wait if they want to read."

Vikram Singh, national secretary, Students Federation of India, has an important point to make. He argues that the scale of the scam suggests that it could not have taken place without political patronisation. He added that the scam has shattered the myth that private education system is efficient. "Privatisation of education only breeds corruption. We have seen from the example of Kashmiri students applying for engineering courses in Delhi and neighbouring areas that the private universities are only interested in enrolling them and getting the funds from the Prime Minister's Special Scholarship Scheme (PMSSS). Once they receive the money, they abandon the students, who are left with no options."