Following incidents of manhandling of some Kashmiri students in other states, the state government has approved setting up of “help centres” headed by liaison officers to coordinate with students of the state pursuing higher education in other parts of the country. These centres will come up in New Delhi, Noida, Meerut, Chandigarh, Aligarh, Bhopal, Pune, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai and Jaipur.
Nearly 20,000 students from the state are pursuing higher studies in various colleges in other states. This year, around 3820 students got admission to various undergraduate courses.
Since 2012, J&K students have also availed opportunities to obtain admission in undergraduate course outside the state under the Prime Ministers Special Scholarship Scheme (PMSSS).
The liaison officers positioned in these major cities will report directly to the Resident Commissioner, J&K, in New Delhi and coordinate with him and the state government regarding issues faced by the students of J&K. The higher education department will be overall coordinating department in the state government.
Each location will have a ‘Help Center’, a temporary office with basic facilities including telephone/internet. The details about the ‘Help Centers’ will be widely published. Students wherever necessary would also be engaged as assistant liaison officers on a stipend/honorarium.
Positioning liaison officers in major cities where concentration of J&K students is higher will give the students greater sense of safety and security as they can easily contact the liaison officer in case of any apprehensions or trouble. This would also remove apprehensions among the intending students who wish to study in outside state colleges and encourage them to move out of state for higher studies and better pursuits, an official spokesman said.