In a memorandum submitted to Minority Affairs Minister Salman Khursheed, the tribal student body claimed that certain communities in the state like Bengalis, Nepalese and others have claimed to be minorities in the state for their own benefits.
"These communities (Bengalis, Nepalese and others) are not minorities and so, they cannot claim to get such status and to derive benefits in terms of scholarship, minority status of their institutions," the memorandum said.
The memorandum signed by KSU president Samuel B Jyrwa and general secretary Hamletson Dohling, said minorities recognised by the Central government are Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists, Parsis and others and such communities enjoy the privilege of being minorities in terms of scholarships.
The KSU also demanded that scholarship for students belonging to the minority communities, who are permanent residents of Meghalaya, including tribal scholarship, should be increased in view of the fact that the Centre through the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment has increased the scholarship for the Scheduled Caste students all over India.
The students’ body said the Ministry of Minority Affairs has been distributing different types of scholarship to students belonging to minority communities for the last four or five years such as Merit-cum-Means Scholarship, Post-Matric Scholarship and Pre-Matric Scholarship.