Assam chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal on Thursday urged the student community to focus on studies to build a strong society and launched a scheme here to waive educational loans.
Under the Abhinandan scheme, a one-time subsidy of Rs 50,000 will be given to each student on their education loan taken to pursue higher studies. On Thursday, sanction letters were handed over to 1,546 students.
Though Sonowal chose not to speak about the ongoing anti-Citizenship Amendment Act agitation where students have taken part in large numbers, his cabinet colleague Himanta Biswa Sarma said during the recent protest period, the state launched a medical college at Diphu in Karbi Anglong, which will facilitate 100 students to become doctors every year.
Sonowal highlighted the schemes his government had launched to help the student community and urged the teachers and parents to encourage them to study. “I appeal to the teachers and parents to encourage the students to concentrate on studies every moment,” he said.
The programme was scheduled to begin at 11am but was postponed to noon because of the solar eclipse. “When we planned the programme, we did not know about the solar eclipse. We decided to let the eclipse finish before holding this beautiful event,” said Sarma.
He said around 3,500 eligible students did not apply for the scheme because of “crisis of confidence” on the government. “If they apply soon, we will be able to release the money to them. After March 31, the loan subsidy facility will not be available to them,” he said.
Sonowal said the Centre’s decision to augment production capacity of Numaligarh Refinery Limited from 3 million metric tonnes to 9MMT opened new opportunities for the youth and urged them to avail the benefits by improving their skills.
Education minister Siddhartha Bhattacharjya and SBI Northeast circle’s chief general manager Sunil Kumar also spoke.
Santanu Bharali, the legal adviser to the chief minister, senior officials of finance department and deputy general manager of Canara Bank, were also present.
