Assam Government announces 'HPC scholarship scheme'; students to get up to Rs 1 lakh

The Hindustan Paper Corporation’s Pachgram and Jagi Road units remain defunct with the employees deprived of their salaries for more than 36 months. Recently, a set of students demonstrated with placards which stated that they have stopped buying books as their parents don’t get their salaries anymore.

Finance minister of Assam, Himanta Biswa Sarma while addressing the media announced that the state government will roll out an ‘HPC Scholarship Scheme’ and provide a one-time scholarship to the children of the HPC employees.

• Those who are pursuing Engineering or Medical or any “other similar professional courses”, each of them will get a one-time scholarship of Rs 1 lakh.

• Those students pursuing a post-graduate degree or research will get a one-time scholarship of Rs 75,000

• For those who are pursuing Graduation or Diploma (Polytechnic) will get a one-time scholarship of Rs 50,000

• The students who are pursuing Higher Secondary education (+2) or similar will get a one-time scholarship of Rs 25,000

• For those students studying in school (from KG to class X) will a get a one-time scholarship of Rs 10,000

The scholarship is for all the students whose parents are currently employed in either of the two units of HPC in Assam. “If an employee has three children, one is pursuing Engineering, another one doing a post-graduate course in or out of Assam and the youngest one is in higher secondary, all three of them will get their individual scholarships. Meaning, the family will get a total of Rs 1,00,000 + Rs 75,000 + Rs 25,000 a total of Rs 2,00,000,” informed Sarma.

Each student will have to apply for the scholarship online on the Finance Ministry of Assam’s website. From January 14, 2020, onward application link will be available on the portal and the last day to apply for the scholarship is January 20, 2020. The applicants need not produce any documents during the online application process, they just need to fill in basic details about the college and the course and their parents. From January 21, 2020, to January 30, 2020, respective deputy commissioners of Karimganj and Nagaon district will verify the applications and approve them accordingly. Sarma informed that within the first week of February, the government intends to disburse the scholarship through direct-benefit-transfer.

“We are all aware that a liquidator has got the HPC shut. We know that the children of HPC employees are studying in various institutions in and outside Assam and their career is in jeopardy because of the professional situation of their parents. Considering that the state government has decided to launch this scholarship scheme,” said Sarma.

He added, “Minister Chandra Mohan Patowary already announced that the employees need not vacate their quarters, their electricity remains connected despite crores of non-payment. Those are the initiatives we took to ensure that the employees get their necessities and this scholarship scheme is a step in that direction.”

Sarma said that the finance ministry is expecting the scheme to cost around Rs 5 crore, however, he mentioned that the final figure will be determined after the applications and verifications.