BHUBANESWAR: Even as the new academic session is set to start, as many as 183 students with disabilities of the state are awaiting national scholarships for close to a year. They had submitted applications for the scholarships through their educational institutions in 2024-25.
This has come to the fore at a recent review meeting held by the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities in the Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment on the status of applications under National Scholarships for Students with Disabilities.
In a letter to the state government, the department informed that 183 applications received from students with disabilities in the state during the 2024-25 session are still pending verification at the institution level. The applications were for three scholarship schemes of the Government of India - top class, post-matric and pre-matric.
While top class scholarship is for students who want to pursue graduate and PG degree or diploma, post-matric is for students from Class XI to PG degree or diploma. Similarly, pre-matric scholarship is for students of classes IX and X. The department further noticed that even the offline verified scholarship applications sent by the educational institutions to the department for payment of scholarship amount, were lacking necessary documents including disability certificates.
In a letter to all collectors, the state government has recently asked them to direct nodal officers of the educational institutions to verify all the pending and current applications offline and submit the same to the department failing which, stringent action will be taken against them.
The National Scholarship Scheme for Persons with Disabilities, managed by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment through the department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, provides financial assistance to students with disabilities for higher education. The scholarships are open to students with benchmark disability and having a valid certificate of disability as prescribed under rules issued by the competent authority.In a letter to all collectors, the state government has recently asked them to direct nodal officers of the educational institutions to verify all the pending and current applications offline and submit the same to the department failing which, stringent action will be taken against them.
The National Scholarship Scheme for Persons with Disabilities, managed by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment through the department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, provides financial assistance to students with disabilities for higher education. The scholarships are open to students with benchmark disability and having a valid certificate of disability as prescribed under rules issued by the competent authority.