National Scheduled Castes Alliance and the Dalit Sangharsh Morcha along with other fraternal organizations today held a Dalit Mahapanchayat at Sector 25 Rally Ground, Chandigarh. The NSCA and others have been sitting on the site since 28th December 2020 and today was the 28th day of their indefinite symbolic hunger strike and protest dharna against the Post matric scholarship scam allegedly by the Punjab government especially Rs 63 crore corruption by Sadhu Singh Dharamsot, Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment.Paramjit Singh Kainth, President of the NSCA said, “Our basic demand was of admission for ~3 lakh students which were denied such privilege during the last academic year 2019-20 and providing degrees/certificates of 7 lakh students during the years 2017 till 2019 which were withheld by colleges and universities, these demands were accepted to an extent by the Group of Cabinet Ministers during their 15th January Press conference on the post matric scholarship issue. But so far, the rate at which these degrees and certificates are being provided is not satisfactory and I urge the Punjab Government led by Captain Amrinder Singh to take serious notice of this issue and take up the monitoring for such issues effectively.”Kainth further elaborated, “Our other demands included the rights of MNREGA workers and effective monitoring of the scheme including investing corruption in such funds, providing 1/3rd Village Shamlat land to the SC community and making sure no such person is pressurized to forfeit their auction won land, providing ownership rights to people living under “Red Line” areas in villages, Scheduled Castes Sub Plan be implemented in Punjab and budget be allocated according to the population of our community, Right to Education be implemented in Punjab as per the RTE Act and establishing fast track courts to investigate cases of social/caste discrimination and social boycott in Punjab.”
The Dalit Mahapanchayat today passed a resolution regarding these issues and especially regarding the post matric scholarship scam where Shamsher Singh Dullo, Member of Parliament from Rajya Sabha said, “that the investigation by CBI into the alleged corruption by Sadhu Singh Dharamsot in the post matric scholarship scam be initiated and other scams in the misappropriation of funds be investigated by the CBIt.”Subhash Sharma, General Secretary, BJP attended the Mahapanchayat said, “The central scheme of 60:40 funding ratio for post matric scholarship scheme started by the Union government led by PM Shri. Narendra Modi ji is for the benefit of crores of SC, OBC and other marginalized communities and now it is the responsibility of the State government in Punjab to make sure that their share of funds is given to the poor students. The BJP is striving hard to work for the welfare of the Scheduled Castes in Punjab and we will make the next CM of Punjab from the Scheduled Castes community.”“If our demands are not met then we will be forced to sit on agitation again and the Mahapanchayat has issued an ultimatum till April 14 whereby our fraternal organizations and the NSCA will have to protest throughout Punjab and not just Chandigarh.” said Kainth. Others who attended the MahaPanchayat were Rajesh Bagha Ex-Chairman Punjab Scheduled Castes Commission, Raj Kumar Atwal, Advocate Lekh Raj Sharma, Bagga Singh Ferozpur, Kiranjeet Gehri, Dalip Singh Buchre, Adovcate Tarlok Chauhan, Manjit Singh Bali, Kirpal Singh, Jaswinder Singh Rahi, Jasbir Singh Mehta, Boota Ram Malha, Ranjha Bakshi and people from all walks of life joined.