Mysuru: Demanding the release of SC/ST scholarships, Yuvaraja’s College students staged a protest in front of Crawford Hall in city on Friday.

“We are sanctioned with lesser scholarships from 2019-2020 to 2021-22 and at the same time, we are being forced to pay admission fee by ourselves. As we come from poor families, we are finding it difficult to pay our fees and this is affecting our academic activities,” students said.

The protesters further said that an amount of Rs. 1,96,79,080 was supposed to be released as scholarships out of which only Rs. 33,74,029 has been released and the balance amount of Rs.1,63,05,051 is still pending with the  Socia Welfare Department.

“This is the statistics for the year 2019-20. Not even a single rupee has been released by the Department towards the scholarship for the year 2020-21. The Department is withholding scholarships worth crores of rupees,” they charged.

“We have brought this problem to the notice of our College Principal on many occasions but he is not bothered about it. Since the Government has sanctioned lesser amount as scholarships, the Principal is asking us to pay fees. He is also saying that he will not give our original documents if we don’t pay our fees,” said the angry protesters.

“The University of Mysore  Vice-Chancellor should immediately take up the matter with the higher authorities in the Government and give us scholarships so that we can continue our studies without any problem,”    urged the students.