Minority Affairs Ministry to award 90 lakh Scholarships to Students

By Abdul Bari Masoud
New Delhi: Presenting the 100 days report-card, Union Minister for Minority Affairs Dr. Najma Heptulla said that several new initiatives have been taken to strengthen and augment minority welfare schemes, particularly simplifying the procedure of pre-matric scholarships, and made it demand-driven. “The ministry took new initiatives for formulating new schemes to meet priority agenda of the Government or to reorient existing programmes”.
Addressing the media here on September 17, she said the ministry focuses on educational empowerment with skill development as it may award 90 lakh scholarships under Pre-matric, Post-matric, Merit-cum-means based scholarships with an approximate amount of Rs. 1700 crore in the current year. She also announced that the Direct Benefit Transfer in the bank account of students has been operational from this year. “In case of Online Scholarship Management System, facility of uploading the forms is also being started to improve delivery and transparency” she added.
It has targeted selection of 1500 minority students for Free Coaching for Engineering and Medical Entrance Examination and has already sanctioned coaching to 1150 students. It will also establish the Khwaja Gharib Nawaz Senior Secondary School at Ajmer (Rajasthan) through the Maulana Azad Education Foundation. She said the ministry is giving focus to Skill Development of minorities by giving priority to “Seekho aurKamao (Learn and Earn)” scheme. The scheme guarantees minimum 75 per cent employment of trained minority youths and out of them, 50 per cent will be in organized sector. It has sanctioned skill development training of more than 24,364 minority youths in 29 States through 51 selected expert skill development organizations.