BHUBANESWAR: With confusion clouding the newly announced Gyanodaya-Shikshya Ru Samruddhi scheme in colleges and universities, the Higher Education Department (DHE) has issued operational guidelines for implementation of the free KG to PG programme.
The guidelines specify that the scheme will cover regular undergraduate (UG) and postgraduate (PG) studies in state public universities and all government and non-government aided colleges including Sanskrit colleges, while excluding five different categories. These include self-finance courses as well as professional courses such as BEd, BHEd, MEd, ITEP, LLB, LLM, BBA, BCA, MBA and MCA, etc.
Private unaided Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), institutes run under Public-Private Partnership (PPP) mode and students enrolled through distance, open and correspondence mode will also not be covered under the scheme.
A student will be eligible to avail the benefits under the scheme provided he/she has secured admission or re-admission through SAMS in regular UG or PG course in an eligible institution and also maintain a minimum 75 pc marks, the DHE guidelines stated.
While no HEIs will be allowed to collect any fee specified under the scheme from any eligible student, the institutions have been allowed to collect seminar fee, excursion fee, study tour fee, alumni association fee or other similar optional or activity specific charges, duly approved by the competent authority in accordance with government instructions.