Samajwadi Party members on Thursday walked out from the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly accusing the government of harming the interest of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe students by doing away with the 'zero fee admission system' for higher education.

The issue came up through an adjournment notice in the 'zero hour.' In his reply, Minister of State (Independent Charge), Social Welfare & Welfare of SCs and STs, Asim Arun said that a new system involving freeship cards has been brought in its place.

"Under this system, students will have to identify the institute where they want to take admission and apply through the portal submitting their details and also that of the institute and they will get a freeship card with which they can go to the institute and take admission," the minister said.

The scheme has for now been implemented for the government and government-aided institutes and may be extended to private ones from next year, he said.

The minister said that the main concern of the government is to see that all desirous students get admissions and no irregularity takes place.

The minister's comment that perhaps it was for this purpose that the SP government had stopped the scheme in 2014, evoked a strong protest from opposition party's members.

Lalji Verma (SP) termed the withdrawal of the zero admission fee system a "serious matter." He said that while earlier 25 per cent of SC/ST students were going for higher education, only 10 to 9 per cent of them are doing so now because of the steep cost.

He said that especially in the technical institutes, their proportion has gone down drastically.

He called for the former system's restoration to address the anomaly and suggested the government could run it along the lines of Ayushman Cards so that there is no irregularity.

Giving education to these students is our constitutional obligation as SCs/STs constitute 23 per cent of the state's population and their participation in educational institutions is not in line with that number, he said.

Verma said that nearly 5 crore people of the state belonging to the two sections were affected by the withdrawal of the previous system.

He demanded a debate of 2 hours to discuss the matter in the "interest" of these sections.

SP member Ragini Sonkar said that though the BJP government talks about 'sabka saath-sabka vikas,' it does not show on the ground.

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