CHAMLING MEETS SOUTH AND WEST STUDENTS, URGES THEM TO PRIORITISE LEARNING

CM assures to implement one-man committee’s recommendations on the College incident
NAMCHI, 25 July [IPR]: Chief Minister Pawan Chamling today met with students from South and West districts at his residence in Ghurpisey here. Talking about the importance of education and being educated, Mr. Chamling urged students them to identify the purpose of life and become the creators of their own fates and live with positive aim and objectives to become responsible human beings. A comparative situation study with other neighbouring states will show you the real constructive situation of Sikkim with regard to education sector which should persuade you to appreciate the positive quality of the state, the Chief Minister said.
The objective of the present government is to provide educational facilities from the beginning to the highest level along with provision of job-oriented qualitative education and build the students to become skilled and competent, Mr. Chamling said. Now, the focus of the state government will be on providing qualitative education to the students of Sikkim, he stressed.
Sharing details of the many benefits created for the upliftment of the students by the government, he spoke about ‘Prerna Yojana’  scheme for the girl child through which girls are encouraged to pursue studies and early marriage discouraged, and the Chief Minister’s Meritorious Scholarship scheme for meritorious government school students.
He informed them about the recent announcement to make the government school and college education free and underlined that rights and responsibilities should go hand in hand while supporting a cause. He informed about introduction of scholarships grand to OBC category in the state.
“In the journey of my political career till date I have never misguided or led the students towards negative action or path,” stressed the Chief Minister, adding, “I will never push the students to take up any kind of untoward action which would hamper their future”.
Speaking on the recent college fee hike situation he reiterated that the situation came to his notice after the commotion had already taken place while he was in New Delhi for official meeting with the Union Ministers. Upon hearing about the situation in Delhi, the Chief Minister informed that he had immediately taken action like directing the HRDD to roll back the fee hike and to set up a one man committee to look into the incident of 14 July.
Additionally, he also explained about the decentralization of responsibilities in the government as per which departments take up independent decisions while implementation of departmental policies without interference similarly HRDD also did the same of which he was not unaware.
While accepting that some matters had gone out of hand in the fee hike incident, the Chief Minister however condemned the unlawful activities that took place and said that this issue of the students had been hijacked by vested interests.
He further assured that whatever the enquiry committee recommends will be implemented as per the report within 15 days of the findings according to the democratic rule of law and even if the findings are not satisfactory to the students then the Government will take up the matter.
Also present were Speaker KN Rai, Chairpersons Lakpa Ghising and Girish Chandra Rai, former MLA Binod Rai, SP (South) SG Bhutia, DC (South) Prabhakar Verma, ADM (South) Kapil Meena and SDPO (Namchi) Gigee Norbu.