(a) the details of different scholarships awarded to meritorious students, under her Ministry;
(b) the total number of scholarships awarded to the students during the last three years and the current year; State/UT-wise;
(c) whether a large number of scholarships were cancelled during the above said period, if so, the details thereof and the reasons therefor; and
(d) the action being taken or proposed to be taken by the Government against such institutes?
MINISTER OF HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT
(SMT. SMRITI ZUBIN IRANI)
(a) to (d) A Statement is laid on the Table of the House.
STATEMENT REFERRED TO IN REPLY TO PARTS (a) TO (d) OF THE LOK SABHA STARRED QUESTION NO.125 FOR 29.07.2015 ASKED BY SHRI P.P. CHAUDHARY AND SHRI CHANDRA PRAKASH JOSHI, REGARDING AWARD OF SCHOLARSHIP
(a) The Ministry of Human Resource Development is administering three Scholarship Schemes, namely (i) Central Sector Scheme of Scholarship for College and University Students (ii) Special Scholarship Scheme for Jammu & Kashmir and (iii) National Means-Cum Merit Scholarship Scheme.
(i) Central Sector Scheme of Scholarship for College and University Students:
The aim of the Scheme is to provide financial assistance to meritorious students from poor families to meet a part of their day-to-day expenses while pursuing higher studies. The scholarships are awarded on the basis of the results of senior secondary examination. The total number of scholarships is 82000 per year which has been divided amongst the State Boards based on the State`s population in the age group of 18-25 years. Students who are above 80 percentile of successful candidates in the relevant stream from a particular Board of Examination, in class XII and having family income of less than Rs.6 lakhs per annum, pursuing regular courses and not availing of any other scholarship scheme, are eligible for consideration under this Scheme. The rate of scholarship is Rs. 1000/- per month at Graduation level for the first three years of College and University courses and Rs. 2000/- per month at Post-Graduation level. Students pursuing professional courses get Rs. 2000/- per month in the 4 and 5 year. The scholarship is paid for 10 months in an academic year and disbursed directly into the bank accounts of the beneficiary.
(ii) Special Scholarship Scheme for Jammu & Kashmir:
The Special Scholarship Scheme for Jammu & Kashmir has been in operation since 2011. The Scheme was formulated based on the key recommendations of the Expert Group constituted by the Prime Minister.
The Scheme aims to provide tuition fees, hostel fees, cost of books and other incidental charges to students of Jammu & Kashmir, whose parental income is less than Rs 6 lac per annum and who after passing Class XII from Jammu & Kashmir have secured admission outside the State of Jammu & Kashmir to pursue general degree courses, engineering and medical studies in govt. colleges/ institutes/ other non-govt. institutes recognized by AICTE or approved under 12B of UGC Act , or institutes created through an Act of the State Govt., located outside the State of Jammu & Kashmir. However, students who have gained admission through ‘management quota” or admitted in institution which is not approved under 12B of UGC Act or not recognized by AICTE or pursing courses through Open Universities or Diploma Courses not leading to award of a Degree or Post Graduate level studies, in any discipline are not eligible under the scheme.
It is envisaged to provide 5000 fresh scholarships every year. Out of these, 4500 scholarships is for general degree courses (courses such as Agriculture, Fisheries, Horticulture, Veterinary Science etc. would form part of general degree courses), 250 for engineering and 250 for medical studies. There is a provision of Inter-changeability of slots among General Degree, Medical and Engineering Streams, subject to the savings accruing from any shortfall in the number of students opting for general degree courses.
Scholarship amount is different for different courses and reimbursement of scholarship is subject to the maximum ceiling or as per actual whichever is less. For General degree scholarship is Rs. 30,000 Per annum, for Engineering Rs. 1.25 Lakh Per annum and for Medical Rs. 3 Lakh Per annum. In addition Rs. 1 lakh scholarship is provided for Hostel & books charges.
Selection process for 2015-16:
• The eligible students need to apply online on AICTE’s Web portal- http://aicte-jk-scholarship.in/
• The following students are considered under the scheme:
i. Students provided admission through counseling done by AICTE for 2 supernumerary seats.
ii. Students taken admission to college approved under 12B of UGC act, or recognized by AICTE and having at least one NBA accredited course.
iii. Students taken admission in Centrally Funded Institutions.
In case the number of applicants exceeds the number of scholarships available, then the awardees will be selected on the basis of marks scored by them in the Class-XII or equivalent exam.
(iii) National Means-Cum Merit Scholarship Scheme: The Centrally Sponsored “National Means-cum-Merit Scholarship Scheme’ was launched in May, 2008 with the objective to award scholarships to meritorious students of economically weaker section to arrest their drop out at class VIII and encourage them to continue the study at secondary stage. One lakh scholarships of Rs. 6000/- per annum ( Rs. 500/- per month) per student are awarded to selected students of class IX every year and their continuation/renewal in classes X to XII for study in Government, Government-aided and Local body schools under the scheme. There is quota of scholarships for different Status/Union Territories. Students whose parental income from all sources is not more than Rs. 1,50,000/- per annum are eligible to avail the scholarships. Students of Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti (NVS), Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS) are residential schools are not entitled for the scholarships. There is reservation as per State Government norms. The selection of students for award of scholarships under the scheme is made through an examination conducted by the State Governments.
100% funds are provided by the Central Government for the Scheme and the scheme is covered under the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) scheme with effect from on 01.01.2013
(b) The number of students who have been awarded scholarship under the above schemes during the last three years i.e. 2012-13, 2013-14 and 2014-15 and current year are at Annexure-I, Annexure-II and Annexure-III respectively.
(c) to (d) No Scholarship was cancelled during the last 3 years and current year under the Central Sector Scheme of Scholarship for College and University Students and National Means-Cum Merit Scholarship Scheme.
Under the Special Scholarship Scheme for Jammu & Kashmir, scholarships have been awarded to the students who have been found eligible and were approved for the award of scholarship. Candidates who did not meet the eligibility criteria as laid down in the scheme guidelines, were not considered for award of scholarship.
For the academic year 2014-15 admission for two supernumerary seats were provided through Centralized Counseling for General stream in colleges approved under 2(f) and 12B of the UGC Act 1956 or Engineering stream in AICTE recognized institutes. Based on the Centralized counseling, 2102 students were approved for the award of scholarship in the academic year 2014-15. However scholarship has been released to 398 students. Scholarship to 263 students are pending for want of complete documents from the institutes. The remaining 1441 students were not considered for the award of scholarship under the scheme, as they had taken admission on their own to institutes other then the allotted institutes or were denied admission by the allotted institutes.
As there is enough scope for giving scholarship to additional students, the Department has taken a decision to consider the applications of students, who had taken admission on their own to the institutes/colleges recognized by AICTE or approved under 2(f) and 12B of UGC Act and / or any other regulatory authority.
The Chief Secretary of J&K has been requested to disseminate this information and collect applications from such students and forward them for consideration of sanction of scholarship from the year 2014-15.
Further, a committee has been constituted to look into the grievances of the students under the Special Scholarship Scheme for Jammu & Kashmir.