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KMK urges Karunanidhi to streamline endowments
in universities
Coimbatore: The Students Wing
of the Kongu Nadu Munnetra Kazhagam (KMK) has
urged the Chief Minister to intervene and
streamline the disbursement of scholarship
assistance to meritorious students from the
various endowments instituted in the
universities in 1997. Kongu M. Loganathan, State
Students Wing Convenor of KMK in a statement
said that in 1997 the State Government had to
remove the names of renowned leaders from the
names of the Transport Corporations. But in a
bid to remind the future generations about the
great leaders who had contributed for the good
of the society, the Higher Education Department
issued a GO in July 1997 instituting 28
endowments in the names of great leaders in as
many as 15 universities. The endowment was
created with a corpus of Rs. 25 lakhs and the
order clearly stated that out of the interest
from the corpus, 80 per cent should be disbursed
as scholarship while the remaining 20 per cent
of the interest revenue should be added to the
corpus as a deposit. The Government allocated Rs.
525 lakhs for instituting 21 endowments in 15
universities. Mr. Loganathan said that the Right
to Information Act was invoked to ascertain the
status of these endowments only to find out that
the endowments had not been serving their real
purpose. Many of the endowments instituted in
1997-98 had become functional only from 2000-01.
In many cases, the entire 80 per cent of the
interest revenue had not been disbursed to the
students and 20 per cent of the remaining
interest revenue had not been deposited with the
corpus. Similarly the difference in the
financial assistance extended from various
endowments was definitely in any way in the form
of honoring the great leaders. It had come to
light that there had been huge differences in
the money disbursed as assistance from various
endowments. These endowments were being run for
name sake in many of the universities. Mr.
Loganathan also pointed out the huge difference
in number of beneficiaries in various
endowments. There is no clear cut answer on what
happened to the interest revenue generated from
the corpus leaving room for a suspicion on the
possibility of irregularities.
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Because of the fall in the
interest rates for the corpus over the last ten
years, the numbers of beneficiaries were also
dwindling down. The endowment benefits were
being given only to the students from
universities but today there are hundreds of
colleges affiliated to the universities and the
endowment benefits should reach the students
studying in the affiliated colleges as well. To
make the endowments more meaningful, Mr.
Loganathan suggested that the corpus for the
endowment could be increased to Rs. 1 crore. A
few endowments are not operational awaiting
Government orders and in certain cases, the
endowment benefits were being extended only to
Arts and Science College students leaving the
students of professional courses in the lurch.
Similarly unmindful of the number of affiliated
colleges, there is a huge discrepancy in the
number of endowments in each institution. Hence,
Mr.Loganathan urged the Chief Minister to
intervene and initiate appropriate measures for
streamlining the functioning of the endowments
to benefit the student community.
