NAINITAL:
Uttarakhand
high court on Wednesday asked the Union ministry of science and technology to submit its reply in the case related to a student
Pooja Joshi
, who claimed she was eligible for a scholarship of Rs 80,000 instituted by the ministry. Joshi, a resident of
Bageshwar
district in
Kumaon
, said that after waiting for almost two years to receive the amount, when she approached the ministry, she was told that the eligibility criteria of the scholarship scheme had changed and she was no longer eligible for the award.
Providing details of the case, DK Joshi, the girl’s advocate, told TOI, “Pooja had secured 76 per cent marks in the intermediate examination conducted by the Uttarakhand School Education Board. As per the scheme ‘Scholarship For Higher Education’, a component of the ‘Innovation in Science Pursuit for
Inspired Research
(SHE-INSPIRE) project conducted by the central government, she was eligible for the Rs 80,000 per year scholarship for a period of five years as she had secured a place among the top one per cent of the school board in the class XII exams.”
He added that the girl belongs to a poor family and her father is phycially challenged. “The scholarship amount would have come as a big boost for her and her family,” he said.
Speaking to TOI, Pooja claimed that the Uttarakhand government had also issued a certificate of merit to enable her to apply for the scholarship scheme. “In September 2014, I applied online for the scheme following all the prescribed guidelines. I was hopeful that soon, I will soon start receiving the scholarship amount but after waiting for a long time when I sent a mail to the ministry’s website, I received the reply that my scholarship application had been rejected by the screening committee on account of repositioning of cut off marks of Uttarakhand.” She added that this came as a “huge setback for me and my family.” “Despite the fact that I had qualified for the scholarship, I was told after two years of wait that my application was rejected. Is this the way how ‘Beti Padhao’ campaign is run by the central government?”
The single bench of Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia which heard the case directed the central government to respond on the matter within three weeks’ time.