Simdega JAC 4th rank holder sells ‘thongas' to fund studies

Time of India

24-05-2025

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Ranchi: She is 17 and learning to manoeuvre her financial challenges to pursue her dreams of cracking the civil services someday. Meet, Shobita Bilung, a tribal girl from the non-descript Korongo village in the remote Simdega district, who sells "thongas" (paper containers) at sweet shops and roadside carts in Morabadi to fund her textbooks and living expenses while pursuing an undergraduate programme in economics (honours) at the Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee University (DSPMU) (to be renamed as Veer Budhu Bhagat University).
In 2022, she scored 80.80% in the Jharkhand Academic Council (JAC) matriculation examination and was among the 10 top from her district. She bettered the rank in the JAC intermediate by bagging the 4th position in all of Simdega.
On both occasions, the Simdega district administration felicitated and awarded her at a formal ceremony at the district collectorate to honour the district toppers. Bilung said the authorities, while encouraging girls to study, assured all possible govt support in their endeavours by linking them with govt schemes.
"However, none of the promises were translated into action, so far," Bilung told TOI. Over three months ago, she again applied for the govt scholarship scheme (e-kalyan) for tribal and poor students at a camp organised at her varsity, but she is yet to get a penny, she rued.
Bilung has four siblings. While a brother and a younger sister are back home in Simdega studying in schools, her elder sister is nursing dreams of pursuing medical studies.
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Currently, Bilung shares a rented shanty with one of her friends near the university.
"My father runs a small tea and snack shop in my native village and my mother is a housewife. Although he manages to send room rent, I take orders and sell 'thongas' to tide over other expenses," she said, adding that seeing poverty from close quarters, she can't demand more from home.
On the idea of "thongas", Bilung said she learnt it from her father when she was at home.
"I thought of putting that skill to use here. I managed to earn Rs 400-Rs 500 per week by selling them to roadside carts and sweet shops nearby. I use the money for books and other personal expenses," she said, adding that she recently bought some NCERT books with the money to prepare for the civil services.
However, Bilung's story isn't an isolated case of underprivileged students striving hard to pursue studies. From her varsity alone, at least 2,000 such students are struggling to get govt aid.
Talking to TOI, Sarvottam Kumar, the dean of students welfare of DSPMU said, "At least 2,000 applications are pending for govt-linked scholarships from our varsity alone. Under the scheme, whatever they pay for tuition fees gets refunded. Ironically, we followed up with the authorities concerned many times but received no proper response. There have been cases where many don't even get the aid due to bureaucratic and other hurdles.
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Sanjay Kumar Bhagat, the officer in charge of the district welfare department, said currently they were dealing with around 1.5 lakh applications in Ranchi alone. "We are trying our best to verify and process the applications under various schemes but it takes time. Currently, we don't have an allotment of funds and even when we have, it gets exhausted quickly due to the huge number of applicants. Once the funds come from the govt, it can be disbursed," he said.
Tribal welfare minister Chamra Linda didn't respond to calls for his comment on the matter.