Indian Tribal News Service
Jammu
As many as 12,580 students received scholarship amounts worth Rs 15.40 crore under Post-Matric scholarship scheme while under Pre-Matric scholarship scheme an amount of Rs 13.50 crore was disbursed to students studying in 1st to 8th class and an amount of Rs 2.22 crore was credited to the individual bank account of 7420 students of class 9th and 10th.
The Tribal Affairs Department has also earmarked a budget of Rs 45 cr for scholarship in the financial year 2022-23, officials said adding the rise in scholarship budget is aimed at catering the proposed enhancement in scholarship amount for students of Class 1 to 8 to encourage primary education in rural areas.
Secretary, Tribal Affairs, Dr Shahid Iqbal Choudhary informed that education of tribal students is a top priority of J&K Government and with keen interest of Lieutenant Governor, Manoj Sinha, the department has disbursed highest ever scholarship amounting to Rs 31 crore to support the tribal students at Post-Graduate, Graduate, Post-Matric and Pre-Matric level
The scholarship amount has been credited directly to the bank account of the students through PFMS mode. This also includes many cases of the previous two years pending due to various reasons.
Post-Matric scholarship to the tune of Rs 15.40 croe disbursed to 12,580 students includes those under professional courses clubbed under Group A viz MBBS, BDS, BUMS, Degree Engineering Courses, P.G. Courses in Medical & Engineering, BSc Agriculture, BVSc, BSc IT, M Phill, Ph. D Courses, Non-Professional (and all other Government Recognized Courses), UG & PG Level Courses, Computer Courses of 3 years, Group B viz Diploma Engineering Courses, All Medical Courses, B.Ed Courses & CHM “A” Level & “A” Level Courses (01 Years), Group C viz All other Courses leading to a graduate degree not covered under group I & II e.g., B.A/BSc/B.Com etc and Group D viz All Post-Matriculation Level Non-Degree Courses for which entrance qualification if High School (Class X), e.g., Senior Secondary Certificate (XI & XII), both General and Vocational Stream, ITI Courses, 3 year Diploma Courses in Polytechnic, (“O” Level Hardware/Software Diploma Computer Courses etc).
The number of students provided scholarships under the Graduate and Post-Matric scholarship registered an increase of 120% over the numbers last year in addition to clearing the backlog of precious two years.
The department is also working on a special scholarship award for more than 32,000 tribal students of Seasonal Educational Centres belonging to Transhumant semi-nomadic families to encourage their inclusion in quality education from this year as a flagship initiative
The Tribal Affairs Department is further working on reforming the process of scholarship by introducing PFMS at Pre-matric and doubling the scholarship amount for Classes 1 to 8.
The department had announced doubling of scholarship budget to Rs 30 cr in 2021-22 which was achieved in time and for next academic year another 50% hike to Rs 45 Cr has been included in the budget.
The scholarship budget of Rs 6.37 Cr in 2018-19, 8.60 Cr in 2019-20 was enhanced to record Rs 30 cr outlay for the financial year 2021-22.
