By TCN News,
New Delhi: The Union Ministry of Minority Affairs has released (till 30th September 2011) an amount of Rs. 218.03 crore under its Scheme of Pre-matric Scholarship for students belonging to the Minority communities. The total budget for this Scheme during current Financial Year is Rs. 600 crore and the amount released is with respect to 14 states.
The 14 states are: Uttar Pradesh (Rs. 46.46 crore), Kerala (Rs. 43.40 crore), West Bengal (Rs. 32.84 crore), Maharashtra (Rs. 22.02 crore), Bihar (Rs. 21.54 crore), Karnataka (Rs. 18.01 crore), Andhra Pradesh (Rs. 11.89 crore), Tamil Nadu (Rs. 8.41 crore), Madhya Pradesh (Rs. 6.14 crore), Jharkhand (Rs. 4.13 crore), Odisha (Rs. 1.39 crore), Manipur (Rs. 1.19 crore), Sikkim (Rs. 0.39 crore) and Uttarakhand (Rs. 0.23 crore).
The target for fresh scholarships under the Scheme of Pre-matric Scholarship for students belonging to the Minority communities has been fixed at 34 lakh scholarships.
Notwithstanding the promptness of the Central Government in releasing the funds for the three mega minority scholarship schemes, some states are not utilizing the fund fully and distributing the amount among the beneficiaries. Bihar is performing very poorly on this count. There are several districts and thousands of selected students who have not got scholarship amount even for the year 2009-10.