9.3 cr for jammu kashmir students scholarships

The Ministry of Human Resources Development, Government of Indian, has launched a Special Scholarship Scheme for the students of Jammu and Kashmir, appearing for Class XII or equivalent examinations through the State Board of School Examinations (BOSE) or Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) affiliated schools, located within the State.

Official sources said under this scheme of the Central Government, 5000 scholarships will be given every year to the students of Jammu and Kashmir, who take admissions outside the State to pursue higher education in general degree courses, Engineering and Medical studies in the Government Colleges and Institutes and other non-Government institutes recognized by AICTE or University Grants Commission.

The Government has split 5000 scholarships giving major share i.e. 4500 scholarships to general degree courses. Rest of 500 scholarships would be equally distributed (250 each) to Medical and Engineering students.

“An amount of up to Rs 30,000 per annum for general degree courses, up to Rs 1.25 lakh per annum for Engineering and up to Rs 3 lakh per annum for Medical students is being given to every scholar as tuition fees,’’ sources said, adding that in addition to this, hostel fees and incidentals is also being given for all categories of courses up to a ceiling of Rs 1 lakh per annum.

Sources said that the HRD Ministry was making efforts to popularize the scheme among the students by publicizing it at the school level.

“In order to improve the delivery mechanism and also effectively monitor the progress of the scheme, it has been assigned to the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) for implementation through an e-portal from the academic year 2012-13.]

Meanwhile, the AICTE has invited online applications from the eligible students through its web portal by advertising it in the leading newspapers. On the basis of the recommendations made by the AICTE, an amount of Rs 9.3 crore has already been released to 1048 students to the AICTE by the HRD Ministry, sources said.

It may be mentioned here that some of the students studying outside the State under the HRD Ministry’s scholarship scheme had been asked by the management of their colleges to clear the fees or their admissions would be cancelled.

It was after the issue highlighted by the students that the HRD Ministry had made AICTE as nodal agency for implementation of the scheme.. The HRD has also called for fresh verification of credentials of the students, who were studying in different colleges or had applied for further studies under the scheme.

Sources in the State Government now said that the fresh HRD directive was likely to remove confusion among the students and help those students, who had taken admissions in various Colleges under the scholarship scheme.