Hyderabad: The AUSF (Azad United Students Federation) and HCU (Hyderabad Central University) students in Hyderabad called for a protest after the Union government on Thursday declared to discontinue the Maulana Azad National Fellowship (MANF) for minorities from 2022-23.
They urged students to join the protest at the shopping complex, OAT, MANNU at 6 pm on Friday evening.
AUSF condemned the decision by the Centre claiming that the Modi-led government has neglected the educational sector and especially the educational infrastructure pertaining to minorities (Muslims).
They condemned this act of the Central government as an attack on the minority students who were funded by the ‘ministry of minority affairs’ to pursue higher education.
Maulana Azad Fellowship for minorities to stop from 2023: Centre
Union minister for Minorities affairs, Smriti Irani while replying to a query by Tamil Nadu’s Prathapan MP in Lok Sabha on Thursday, said that “The MANF scheme was implemented by the University Grants Commission (UGC) and as per the data provided by UGC 6,722 candidates were selected under the scheme between 2014-15 and 2021-22 and fellowships to the tune of ₹ 738.85 crores were distributed during the same period.”
She further said that “Since the MANF scheme overlaps with various other fellowship schemes for higher education being implemented by the Government and minority students are already covered under such schemes, hence the government has decided to discontinue the MANF Scheme from 2022-23.”
