By Mumtaz Alam Falahi, TwoCircles.net,
New Delhi: The Congress-led UPA government at the Centre has fixed a target of above 29 lakh scholarships for students of minority communities in the current fiscal of 2009-10. In the Union Budget presented today the government has increased the outlay for the minority affairs ministry from Rs.1,000 crore last fiscal to Rs.1,740 crore. Besides other programs, the ministry runs three mega minority scholarship schemes.
In the revised target (revision made on July 2), the Centre has set a target of 22 lakh scholarships under the pre-matric scholarship scheme. While in the post-matric scheme the target will be 7 lakh scholarships.
Of 22 lakh pre-matric scholarships, Muslims, the largest minority, will get more than 1604350, followed by Christians (279400), Sikhs (223080), Buddhists (92400) and Parsis (770).
Of 7 lakh post-matric scholarships, Muslims will get 510475, Christians (88900), Sikhs (70980), Buddhists (29400) and Parsis (245).
In the last fiscal the target in the two categories was 4 lakh and 1.75 lakh respectively.
Besides pre-matric and post-matric scholarship schemes the union ministry also runs the merit-cum-means scholarship scheme wherein every year 20 thousand students are granted scholarships.
In the category of pre-matric scholarship scheme for the fiscal 2009-10, Uttar Pradesh has been given a target of 370810 scholarships, of which Muslims will get 356950 scholarships. With 244530, West Bengal follows UP. Maharashtra is at No. 3 with 202400 scholarships.
Similar is the trend in post-matric scheme.
For pre-matriculation scholarships, 75% funding is provided by the Centre while 25% by state governments. For the post-matriculation scholarships going up to Ph.D. level, the entire amount will be given by the Centre.
Target for Pre-matric scholarships in 2009-10
Target for Post-matric scholarships in 2009-10