PUDUCHERRY: The Department of Adi-dravidar Welfare and Scheduled Tribes Welfare has introduced a new scheme to grant full fees to Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (SC & ST) students irrespective of their family income to pursue school education and higher, technical, professional courses in Puducherry
Under the scheme, the eligible SC and ST students will be sanctioned fee, namely tuition fee, examination fee, term fee, laboratory fee, book fee, uniform fee and other non-refundable fees payable to the institutions except bus fee, mess fee, donation, capitation fee.
The fees will be fixed by the statutory committees constituted by the government. The sanctioned amount towards fees will be released directly into the account of the concerned educational institutions through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT).
After the decision was taken at the cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister V Narayanasamy, the proposal was forwarded to the Lt Governor for approval.
Lt. Governor Kiran Bedi accorded approval to the scheme on December 30 with further improvement thereby giving freedom of choosing any recognized private school in the UT for study by the SC and ST students. It is expected that 6777 SC & ST students of the U.T. will be benefited under this scheme with the financial implication of about Rs. 42 crores per year.
Lt Governor has directed the Welfare Department and Finance Department to ensure that adequate funds are provisioned for this scheme in the budget by re-prioritising the existing schemes.