Students from well-to-do families applying under free education scheme

FREE ADMISSION TO POOR STUDENTS

FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT

TINSUKIA, June 24: With government offering free admission to poor students in educatiol institutions, more than 80% guardians overnight became poor. While guardians are making bee-line in front of offices authorized to issue income certificates, in a local college here more than 300 freshly admitted students have so far submitted their claims and more on coming days. While veracity of their claim can be easily accessed from their belongings including handsets and mobiles, genuine poor students are moving from pillar to post for assistantship as most of the colleges continued admission processes uninterrupted as scheduled with post-refund provisions.

A senior government official, on the condition of anonymity said in such type of scheme, more than 80% unscrupulous people take the advantage and the government boosts the success with just 20% of genuine beneficiaries despite knowing that majority guardians procure the income certificates by fraudulent means or by false declarations.

While local SDC/circle office charge Rs 80 against a certificate as processing fee, the other non-government authorized offices like mauzaders, panchayats, village heads etc are allegedly charging amount from Rs 200-400 per certificate or at their whims.

Many guardians who are from well to do families have applied under this scheme. In Tinsukia district most of the rural people with exception, however, though claim themselves to be farmers or cultivators are actually small tea growers with annual earning exceeds several lakhs.

The state government in order to fulfill its commitment will drain several crores of rupees from public exchequer. While the educatiol institutions are helpless compelled to follow the government criteria, the conscious citizen demand that there should be a mechanism to screen actual beneficiaries so that the benefit reaches to actual target.