By TCN News,
Mumbai: In the next 60 days, the Minorities Development Department of the Government of Maharashtra is going to invite applications and sanction nearly Rs. 60 crore towards scholarships and reimbursement of fees.
During the last academic year, there was a scholarship scheme for SSC-passed and HSC-passed students studying for any Degree or Diploma courses. Rs 36 crores were earmarked for 20,000 scholarships under the scheme which pays full fees or Rs 25,000 whichever is less. Last year there were only 6,000 applicants, which means that 14,000 scholarships went un-applied for.
A student who qualifies for the scholarship in the first year of diploma/degree course will automatically receive the scholarship amount every year for the entire duration of the course. The only condition is that the student has passed the annual exam.
Similarly there is a scheme for only SSC-passed students (re-imbursement of course fees, subject to a maximum of Rs.4,000, for short term employment oriented certificate courses). Here again there were not sufficient applicants last year.
There is a third scheme (this is a Central govt scheme routed through state government) for payment of course fees for SSC-passed students in non-professional courses. Maharashtra has a quota of 60,000 such scholarships/fee reimbursements but so far there are only 15,000 applications.
The criteria for eligibility of scholarship/fee re-imbursement are quite simple: 1. Must be a domicile of Maharashtra 2. Must belong to the minority community (Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Jain, Sikh, Parsi)) 3. Family income should be less than Rs.2.5 lakh per year.
The entire process of application, scrutiny, sanction and disbursal has to be completed before March 2010.
Besides the three, the state is also running central government’s Merit cum Means Scholarship Scheme. The objective of the Scheme is to provide financial assistance to the poor and meritorious students belonging to minority communities to enable them to pursue professional and technical courses.
Under this scheme, selected candidate will get an amount of Rs.20,000/- to Rs.25,000/. A total of 5000 students all over Maharashtra will be provided these scholarships, out of which 30% is reserved for girls. Last date for submission of application is 18th February, 2010.
Students in Maharashtra can apply for this scheme online at the website of Directorate of Technical Education http://www.dte.org.in/mcm/. Or the forms can be downloaded and submitted to the educational institutes.