While Tamil Nadu and Puducherry quibble over matters of jurisdiction in providing assistance under the Prime Minister’s Tsunami Scholarship scheme to children of fishermen from Villupuram district studying in the Union Territory, the students have had to go without the scholarship for the last six years.
Under the scheme, announced in 2005-06 for a period of 10 years, children from tsunami-hit families are given a monthly assistance of `300 to fund their education up to Class 10.
Although six years have already gone by, the stand taken by Tamil Nadu and Puducherry is depriving the 113 students from Villupuram district studying in classes 8, 9 and 10 in government and private schools in Puducherry of the assistance they need.
While the educational authorities in Tamil Nadu claim they are not eligible for the scholarship as they don’t study in the state, Puducherry is unwilling to help them either because they are from Tamil Nadu.
Convener of the Neithal Community Children’s Rights Movement M.A. Segar, who has taken up the matter with the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights and the Puducherry Lt Governor, regrets that the Puducherry government, which has in the past extended welfare schemes to people without considering their nativity, is taking a tough stand where the Tsunami Scholarship Scheme is concerned.
According to a senior official in the education department, students from Villupuram who are studying in schools in Puducherry have to contact the Tsunami Project Implementation Agency in the district to receive the scholarship.