‘Centre chokes aspirations of minorities by discontinuing MANF Fellowship’

Students lamented that by scrapping an important fellowship scheme, the union government was depriving minorities of their opportunity to pursue higher education.

Hyderabad: The BJP led union government deciding to discontinue the Maulana Azad National Fellowship (MANF) for minority communities from the academic year 2022-23 has evoked staunch opposition from the student organisations in the State.

Students lamented that by scrapping an important fellowship scheme, the union government was depriving minorities of their opportunity to pursue higher education.

Several student organisations of the University of Hyderabad and Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MANUU) held protests on their respective university campuses against the Central government’s decision.

Replying to a query in Lok Sabha on Thursday, the union Minister for Minorities Affairs Smriti Irani said since the MANF scheme overlapped with various other fellowship schemes for higher education being implemented by the government and minority students were already covered under such schemes, the government has decided to discontinue the MANF scheme from 2022-23.

UoH Students union General Secretary Gopi Swamy alleged that ever since the BJP came to power at the Centre, it has been cutting down the funds to the universities in the country and killing the public university system. Now by stopping the MANF, the Central government was choking the aspirations of the minorities to pursue higher education in the universities, he said.

MANUU Students union Vice President Abuhamza said the union government talks about Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas but by scrapping the MANF, it was suppressing the aspirations of the minorities wishing to enter higher education.

He questioned the government as to how students from minority communities particularly from economically weaker sections, pursue their higher education without the financial assistance. “We demand the Central government to continue the MANF scheme,” he added.

The MANF scheme was launched in 2009 to provide five-year financial assistance to minority communities — Muslims, Buddhists, Christians, Jains, Parsis and Sikhs to pursue MPhil and PhD programmes.