Dalit student IIT admission: UP to register premier institutes for scholarship disbursal to students

Lucknow: After a Dalit student from Uttar Pradesh almost lost his IIT seat due to delayed fee payment, the state government plans to register all IITs, IIMs and other premier institutes with its Department of Social Welfare to provide scholarships to students.

The first to be registered would be the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Dhanbad, which was on Monday directed by the Supreme Court to admit the student, Atul Kumar (18), the son of a daily wager from Muzaffarnagar's Titora village.

Kumar lost his hard-earned seat in the Electrical Engineering branch at IIT Dhanbad as he missed the deadline to pay the admission fee of Rs 17,500 by a few minutes.

On Wednesday, the Uttar Pradesh government had announced that it would bear Kumar's entire fee through scholarship.

The state government now plans to help all students like Kumar.

"We will write to all such institutes of national importance, including IITs and IIMs, that are located outside the state for registration to enable seamless scholarship disbursement to all eligible candidates from the state who get admitted in these institutes," Social Welfare Minister Asim Arun told PTI.

He said he spoke to the registrar of IIT Dhanbad and the institute is likely to be registered with the Department of Social Welfare by Thursday.

"I have spoken to IIT Dhanbad authorities and hopefully by the time Atul reaches the institute, it would be registered with us, ensuring a smooth transfer of scholarship to him and all other eligible students from the state in future," the minister said.

"As of now, many of the institutes like IITs outside Uttar Pradesh aren't registered with us. IIT Dhanbad wasn't registered with us either.

"So, I called up the institute's registrar, who turned out to be from Kannauj (Arun's assembly constituency). It has been decided that IIT Dhanbad would be registered with us immediately, possibly by Thursday, so that the channel for disbursing scholarships is quickly in place," he added.

Currently, three Uttar Pradesh government departments -- Social Welfare, Backward Welfare and Minorities Welfare -- disburse scholarships. The Department of Social Welfare is the nodal department for all scholarships and framing rules for it, Arun said.

He said his department will also issue a "free-ship card" to Kumar.

"This card facility, started this year itself, allows eligible students to enrol in an institution and on the basis of that card, this student will be able to secure what was earlier referred to as the zero-balance-admission," the minister said.

Earlier, Arun spoke to Kumar's family over phone and assured them that the state government would provide financial assistance for his education.