NEW DELHI: The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs on Wednesday approved Rs 59,000 crore in an enhanced outlay for a scholarship scheme meant for funding education of students from scheduled castes. Union Minister for Social Justice Thawerchand Gehlot said that the enhanced outlay for the Post Metric Scholarship scheme will benefit more than four crore students in the next five years.
While the Centre will bear 60 per cent of the total cost of the scheme, the rest will be shared by the state governments. Under the scheme, the SC students get the scholarships to pursue higher education after their matriculation examinations, with the government bearing the full cost of education.
“The Central government is committed to give a big push and further impetus to ensure enrolment ratio of SCs reach up to the national standards within five year period,” said the government in a media statement, adding that the focus would be on enrolling the poorest students, timely payments, comprehensive accountability, continuous monitoring and total transparency.
Aiming to bring over 1.36 crore students not pursuing higher education after the class 10, the government said that it would launch a campaign to enroll such students under the Centrally sponsored scheme. “The scheme will be run on an online platform with robust cyber security measures that would assure transparency, accountability, efficiency, and timely delivery of the assistance without any delays.,” said the government.
“The States will undertake fool-proof verification of the eligibility, caste status, Aadhaar identification and bank account details on the online portal.” Also, a campaign would be launched to enroll the students from the poorest households passing the 10th standard in courses of their choice.