EDUCATIONAL GRIEVANCES 429
advantage of it even if they are required to refund the sums received by them when they are employed or they may be made to serve the Government for a term under a lower scale of salary. There can be no objection to Government accepting these proposals.
- For the purpose of assisting Advanced Scientific and Technical Education among the Scheduled Caste students I am making two other proposals. One is to make :
(3) Provision for Scheduled Caste students in the School of Mines.
The Government of India has under its control the Indian School of Mines which is located at Dhanbad. The school provides high grade instructions in Mine Engineering and in Geology. The training given in the Indian School of Mines is calculated to train men who can serve in the coal mining industry and other mineral industries in India. The number of students that are at present taking instructions in the Indian School of Mines are about 97. The school is open to students from all parts of India. From enquiries made it is established that out of the 97 students there is not a single one from the Scheduled Castes. It is very necessary that some special measures should be taken by the Government of India to sec that the students belonging to the Scheduled castes are in a position to take advantage of the Indian School of Mines. To achieve this object it will be necessary :
(a) To reserve a certain number of seats for the Scheduled Caste boys having the minimum standard of education required for admission.
(b) The grant of free-ships.
(c) The grant of scholarships.
It will not be too much to claim that one-tenth of the total number of admissions should be reserved for the Scheduled Castes. This is a matter which falls within the scope of the Labour Department. But it is a question which concerns also the Finance Department in as much as the free-ships and scholarships would mean the loss of revenue to the State. But the loss on acccount of these measures will not be very great. The annual fee on an average which a student has to incur in the School of Mines be about 60 rupees a month which would mean a monthly expense of Rs. 60 per student.