Rs. 350 Cr. for Minority Scholarships

By A Staff Writer
Bengaluru: The minority candidates have benefitted immensely from the scholarship scheme of the Government of Karnataka which is also funded by the Central Government. Karnataka Minister for Urban Development and Waqf, Mr. Qamarul Islam recently informed the media that in several professional courses, the minority candidates (from Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Parsi, Jains and Buddhist communities) have benefitted more than their share in the population. He said during 2014-15, 15,050 minority candidates were able to get admissions in BE course which accounts for 24.9% of the total seats filled in the State. (The State has over 220 engineering colleges with nearly a lakh of seats, nearly 40% of which have been remaining vacant in recent years.). Of 15,050 BE enrolments, 5,314 were girls while remaining 9,736 were boys. The share of minority enrolment in Management courses was 1,028 or 22.8 %, Pharmacy courses 26.9%, Master of Computer Application (MCA) 29.2%, Hotel Management 27.6%, Architecture and Town Planning 21.2%. He said Karnataka was topmost among the States where minorities benefitted the most from the Government schemes.
Mr. Islam said the new mechanism of transferring the amount for minority candidates to the Karnataka Examination Authority (which looks after the admission process in professional colleges and courses in the State) for direct payment at the time of selection, has helped the communities a lot.
Islam informed that the Government fixed the target of benefitting 13 lakh candidates from the minority candidates through pre-matric, post-matric, and professional courses during 2015-16 by releasing funds to the tune of Rs. Rs. 350 crores. He said 52 students were funded for admission to MD courses with Rs. 156 lakh.