Shillong: Garo Hills Autonomous District Council member Bernard N. Marak wants the Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs to fix the broken Umbrella Scholarship Scheme. He demands faster payouts and fewer roadblocks for tribal students. The BJP leader submitted a formal request to the Union Minister on November 4 after noticing students struggle to get their benefits.
Students are bleeding cash. They spend over Rs 5,000 on paperwork, travel, and cyber cafe fees just to apply. Marak says income certificates expire too fast, forcing students to repeatedly pay for new ones. He suggests allowing Autonomous District Councils or local MDCs to certify these documents. This shift would honor their Sixth Schedule duties to protect tribal interests.
The system is a mess. Applications get rejected for minor clerical errors, while payment failures and Aadhaar mismatches plague the Direct Benefit Transfer process. Students studying outside Meghalaya suffer most from slow institutional verification. Marak warned that genuine applicants are losing out because of administrative incompetence. He stated: "The scholarship scheme was an important instrument for the educational advancement of tribal students."
Marak pushed the Centre to launch an effective grievance system. He also wants more awareness campaigns in rural areas and tighter monitoring of colleges. His list of demands includes fixing technical bugs in the Public Financial Management System and ensuring uniform scholarship payouts. The ministry must act to clear these hurdles for the students.
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