Include children of forest personnel under scholarship scheme:

Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi has urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to extend the ambit of the Prime Minister's Scholarship Scheme to include children of forest personnel killed in the line of duty.

Gogoi in a letter to the prime minister, which was made available to the media on Friday, said that forest personnel are also government servants who often lose their lives in the line of duty.

All forest staffs who work on field, forest guards, beat officers, deputy rangers and forest rangers are uniformed soldiers who have the authority to register cases under certain acts, arrest people, and carry weapons, the Congress MP said.

"They are the police guarding our nature who have to routinely battle armed poachers, smugglers, illegal miners and encroachers and are also vulnerable to forest fires, diseases and attacks by animals", he said.

India owes a great deal to the guarding of our forest and wildlife resources and as such "I request you to ensure that the government provides the Prime Minister's Scholarship Scheme also for children of India's green soldiers, who patrol the remotest of jungles without recognition or limelight", urged Gogoi.

Gogoi is a second term MP from the Kaliabor Lok Sabha seat in Assam.

The Centre on May 31 had hiked scholarship given to widows and wards of deceased or ex-service personnel of armed and paramilitary forces from the National Defence Fund and extended its ambit to include wards of state police officials martyred in terror or Maoist attacks.