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Centre injects whopping Rs 7,500 crore in education system
PTI | New Delhi
The UPA government has injected a massive dose of investment to provide higher education to students belonging to minorities, SC, ST and OBC communities.
The Centre has earmarked a whopping Rs 7,500 crore during the 11th Plan period to provide scholarships to over 80 lakh meritorious students seeking higher academic and professional qualifications of minority, SC and ST communities besides young scientists.
Besides, some of the ongoing schemes for SCs, STs and OBC have been streamlined, substantial backlogs cleared and procedures simplified which resulted in nearly 1.45 crore young persons getting these benefits last year.
The Department of School Education and Literacy has started a Rs 600 crore National Means-cum-Merit Scholarship in 2008-09 which is projected to benefit 11 lakh students in five years. Similarly, the Rs 1,515 crore National Scheme of Incentives to Girls for Secondary Education would cover 52 lakh girls.
So far, an amount of Rs 203 crore has been spent on providing scholarships to 5,332 SC students to pursue M.Phil and Ph.D programmes under the "Rajiv Gandhi National Fellowship", started by the Ministry of Social Justice and Employment in 2005-06.
The government has earmarked Rs 45 crore for a new scholarship known as "Scheme for College and University Students". The Scheme which has been cleared by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) is likely to benefit nearly 82,000 students.
A total of 25 lakh students of minority community are likely to be covered during the Plan period under the Post-Matric Scholarship for Minorities. The Ministry of Minority Affairs has earmarked an outlay of Rs 1,530 crore for the scheme.
An equal number of minority students are targeted to be covered under the Pre-Matric Scholarship Scheme approved last year. The scheme would involve an expenditure of Rs 1,868.50 crore.
Under the Merit-cum-Means Scholarship for Professional Education for Minorities, launched in 2007-08, nearly 2.55 lakh scholarships would be awarded during the Plan period involving an amount of Rs 761.69 crore.
An allocation of over Rs 2,000 crore has been provided in the 11th Plan for offering 10,000 scholarships every year under the "Scholarship for Higher Education (SHE)". Under the scheme, a scholar would get Rs 80,000 per annum to pursue Bachelor and Masters in natural sciences.
The Ministries of Home and Railways are likely to operationalise shortly a scholarship scheme for the Armed Forces including para-military forces.
Known as Prime Minister's Scholarship scheme, it would offer scholarships to 4,000 personnel in armed forces, 910 in para-military and 90 in Railway forces. The scheme provides a monthly assistance of Rs 1,250 for boys and Rs 1,500 for girls.
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