हिंदी
Banwari Lal thanks PM for approving “Post-Matric Scholarship for Students belonging to Scheduled Castes”
Chandigarh, January 5: Haryana Welfare of Scheduled Castes and Backward Classes Minister, Dr. Banwari Lal has thanked the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi for approving the centrally sponsored scheme with major and transformational changes, “Post-Matric Scholarship for Students belonging to Scheduled Castes” (PMS-SC), which will benefit more than four crore Scheduled Castes students in the next 5 years. Under this scheme, the Union Cabinet has made a budget provision of about Rs 59,000 crore for scheduled caste students.
While interacting with media persons today, he said that this is the most important and major scheme for academic development of scheduled castes. He said that there are about 60 lakh scholarships in all courses starting from Class IX every year and the gross enrolment ratio has increased from 17.1 percent during the year 2013-14 to 23 percent during the year 2018-19.
Dr. Banwari Lal said that the scholarship under this scheme includes tuition fees, monthly maintenance allowance, typewriting allowance for research, etc. Similarly, a campaign will be launched to enroll students from the poorest families under this scheme and priority will be given to the students from these families who drop out of Class X.
He said that according to SECC data (Socio-Economic Caste Census Data) in such families where one or both parents are illiterate or the child has passed out from a government school, a special campaign will be conducted by the states to include the children under this scheme. Under this scheme, students from families whose family income is Rs 2.5 lakh or less per year will be included.
Dr. Banwari Lal said that in the next five years about 1.36 crore poorest students will be given scholarships and in the next four years about four crore students will get the benefit of the scheme. Focusing on the poorest families under this scheme will help reduce the dropout rate and help students complete their education without any problems.
Starting from the year 2021-22, the Centre’s share of 60 percent in this scheme will be paid directly to the students’ accounts while 40 percent will be held by the state. The timely payment under this scheme will help the students to focus on their studies. He said that the Central Assistance which was about Rs 1100 crore per year during the year 2017-18 to 2019-20, will be increased more than five times during the year 2020-21 to 2025-26 to about Rs 6,000 crore per year.
