New Delhi: The revised Post-Matric Scholarship Scheme aimed at benefiting more than four crore Scheduled Caste students was approved by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) on December 23 with a budget of ? 59,000 crores for the purpose.
The Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi agreed that 40 per cent of the budget, which amounts to ? 23,619 crores would be spent by the State and the rest by the Central government.
“This replaces the existing ”committed liability” system and brings greater involvement of the Central government in this crucial scheme. The focus of the scheme would be on enrolling the poorest students, timely payments, comprehensive accountability, continuous monitoring and total transparency,” an official statement said.
The prime minister said that the post-metric scholarship will ensure greater educational access to students belonging to SC communities. Youths are an important focus area for our government by ensuring top quality and affordable education for our youth.
With the government providing for the cost of education through the post-metric scholarship scheme for Scheduled Castes students can pursue any course from class 11 onwards.
“A campaign will be launched to enrol the students, from the poorest households passing the 10th standard, in the higher education courses of their choice. It is estimated that 1.36 crore such poorest students, who are currently not continuing their education beyond 10th standards, would be brought into the higher education system in the next 5 years,” the statement said.
“The scheme will be run on an online platform with robust cybersecurity measures that would assure transparency, accountability, efficiency, and timely delivery of the assistance without any delay. The states will undertake fool-proof verification of the eligibility, caste status, Aadhaar identification and bank account details on the online portal,” it added.
The scheme will be strengthened using a monitoring mechanism through the conduct of annual third-party evaluation, social audits, and half-yearly self-audited reports from each institution.
“The Central assistance which was around ? 1,100 crore annually during 2017-18 to 2019-20 would be increased more than five times to be around ? 6,000 core annually during 2020-21 to 2025-26,” it said.
