Now, with the final year exams round the corner, the students are running from pillar to post to get help from government authorities.
More than 30 students of SIES Graduate School of Technology (GST), Nerul, an engineering college, are in a fix. Half of them were denied forms to appear for the upcoming final year exam. The other half did not receive their original documents from the college after passing out because the Social Welfare Department of the state government had not paid scholarship fees since 2014 to the college for socially backward category students pursuing Printing and Packaging Technology (PPT) course.
Now, with the final year exams round the corner, the students are running from pillar to post to get help from government authorities.
One of the students of SIES GST, said, "Our college is asking us to pay Rs 1,20,000. All of us had applied for scholarships from the government and cannot afford to pay this high fees. We met officials from the Directorate of Technical Education (DTE) and the Registrar of the University of Mumbai for help, but it went in vain."
Another student of he college said, "Despite meeting education officials who have issued notices to college to allow us to write exams, our college is forcing us to pay a fees we cannot afford. Now we have been asked to meet the college management officials on Thursday."
According to the students, the social welfare department has not paid the college scholarship fees since 2014. Some technical changes were made to the admission process, after which the students stopped receiving aids from the government, they said.
Pramod Naik, Joint Director, DTE, said, "The students of SIES did approach me and I had written to the college to let them write their exams. But the students did not inform me what happened after that, so I assumed their work was done."
Vikram Patil, Principal of SIES, GST, said, "The college has not received the scholarship amount which is supposed to come from the Social Welfare Department. From the 2014 academic year, the college did not receive any scholarship fees for the quota students pursuing PPT course which is of approximately Rs 2.25 crore. Ours is a minority college and our management says that after Bombay High Court's recent decision that there will be no reservation in minority colleges, the question of scholarship does not arise. Hence these students will have to pay their fees as per open category candidates now. The management is aware that the students will not be afford to pay the fees all at once, so they have asked them to pay it in installments."
Dinesh Waghmare, Secretary, Social Welfare Department, said, "The students did approach me and I directed them to meet my joint secretary. I don't know about this issue. I will take details from the joint secretary and look into it."
Forgotten Cause
From the 2014 academic year, the college did not get any scholarship fees for the SC/ST students pursuing PPT course which is of approximately Rs 2.25 crore.
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