Activists of Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) demonstrating berfore burn the effigy of Bihar CM Nitish Kumar in Patna on Thursday against police lathicharge on Datit students. (TOI photo)

PATNA: Amid uproarious scenes, the Bihar legislative council was on Thursday adjourned when the opposition sought a special debate on the police lath charge on Dalit students and curtailment of their scholarship amount.

As soon as the Upper House assembled for day’s scheduled business, NDA members carrying anti-government placards demanded that their adjournment motion be accepted to discuss issues related to the curtailment of scholarship amount of post matric dalit students.

BJP member Rajnish Kumar while moving adjournment motion said that the scholarship amount of post matric dalit students have been reduced from Rs 1.50 lakh to Rs 15000 per annum. He also said that dozens of dalit students had sustained serious injuries near Gandhi maidan on Wednesday. These students were protesting against the reduction of their scholarship amount, he said.

Despite repeated request by the chairman Awadhesh N Singh to raise this issue during zero hour they continued their slogan shouting. The opposition members including K K Singh, Arjun Sahni, Nawal K Yadav, Sanjay Mayukh, Vinod N Jha, Sachchidanand Rai (all BJP), Nutan Singh (LJP), Sanjiv Shyam Singh (RLSP) disrupting the proceedings swooped inside the well of the House.

The chairman Awadhesh N Singh repeatedly requested the members to go back to their seats and raise the issue after the question hour. He then adjourned the House till lunch break.

On Wednesday, police used lathis to disperse dalit students here when they protested against curtailment of scholarship amount in post-matric scholarships for SC/ST students.

Later talking to reporters here, leader of the opposition in the council, Sushil K Modi said that thousands of dalit students are now forced to leave their technical institutes including engineering, medical polytechnic and industrial training institute for non-releasing of their scholarship amount for the last financial year. There is also backlog for 2014-15 financial year, he said.

Quoting the official figure, Modi said that in the last financial year, 1.11 lakh applications were received in which only the scholarship amount of only 20,000 students were disbursed.

"Bihar is facing huge financial crisis due to the total prohibition in Bihar from April. Bihar government will have to curtail somewhere to meet the losses," Modi said and added that the future of students who are admitted in various colleges are uncertain due to the non payment of fees by the government.

Modi also said that a committee has already been set up to probe about the fake institutes running in various parts of the state. But till date no arrest has been made against such institutes. Before the assembly poll, the government had organised enrollment mela at Miller school ground in which more than 100 technical institutes had participated in it, Modi said.

Talking about the launching of students credit card system from October 2, he said that a system is already in force in which the banks will give loan to students at the rate of 12% interest. Banks will assess the students' results, paying capacity and enrolment in institute before disbursing the loan amount. But poor dalit students would be unable to repay the loan amount, he said.

In protest, NDA has decided to stage demonstration in each district headquarters on Friday and will burn the effigy of the CM Nitish Kumar, said party president Mangal Pandey.

"We will take this fight on streets throughout the state in the larger interest of dalit students . The future course of action would be decided soon”, Pandey told reporters.

