ATSUM decries
Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, July 18 2017:
The All Tribal Students' Union Manipur (ATSUM) has expressed discontentment with the failure of the State Government to distribute pre-matric and post-matric scholarship of Scheduled Tribe students for the year 2016-17 .
A press release issued today by the information and publicity secretary of ATSUM accused the Central and the State Government of holding back the scholarship funds for the tribal students .
It claimed that the State Government had sought Rs 5002.87 lakh for the payment of scholarships of 53,705 students for the year 2017-18 but the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Government of India released only Rs 3241.89 lakh (Rs 2423.39 during 2016-17 and Rs 998.50 lakh during 2017-18), leaving out Rs 1080.69 lakh as State share .
However the Finance Department, Government of Manipur, seems to be delaying the procedure of clearing the disbursing the funds sanctioned by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, it further alleged .
ATSUM further appealed to the State Government to take up necessary steps to enable the distribution of the scholarships at the earliest.