THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The general education department has announced that it will ensure timely disbursal of cultural scholarships from this academic year. The decision comes in the wake of complaints over delay in disbursal of cultural scholarship to ‘A grade’ winners in previous editions of state school arts festival. The State School Arts’ Festival for the academic year 2023-24 is scheduled to be held from January 4-8 in Kollam.
As per the State School Arts Festival manual, the ‘A grade’ winners’ are entitled to a ‘one time cultural scholarship’, the quantum of which is announced by the government every year. The general education department had announced Rs 1,000 as the cultural scholarship to around 8,000 ‘A’ grade winners in the previous edition of the arts fete.
However, there were complaints that some of the winners were not provided the amount in a timely manner. Speaking to TNIE, a senior official of the department admitted to delay in certain cases but said they were being addressed on a case to case basis.
“In the previous edition of the arts fete, close to Rs 80 lakh was earmarked for the cultural scholarship, most of which has been disbursed. This year onwards, we will ensure that it is disbursed in an efficient and timely manner,” the official said. As per the arts festival manual, competitions up to the district level will be completed by November end.
“From this academic year, a specific time-frame will be given for ‘A grade’ winners to submit their bank account details after state-level competitions so that the scholarship distribution is not delayed,” the official added. The previous edition of the arts festival that was held in Kozhikode had around 11,000 participants competing in 239 events.