Govt releases Rs 4,000 crore for Post Matric Scholarship Scheme for SC students

NEW DELHI: The Centre has released funds to the tune of Rs 4,000 crore for the Post Matric Scholarship Scheme for Scheduled Castes, Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment Rattan Lal Kataria said on Friday.

In a statement, he said Uttar Pradesh was allocated the highest funds at Rs 892.36 crore followed by Maharashtra at Rs 558 crore and Andhra Pradesh at Rs 450 crore. The government had completely revamped the Post Matric Scholarship Scheme for Scheduled Castes to provide universal access to the youth of the community for higher education.

The funding pattern under the scheme was changed from the committed liability formula to a fixed sharing pattern of 60:40 between the Centre and states (90:10 for northeastern states), thus increasing the commitment of the government in the scheme by almost four times, the minister said.

"An amount of Rs 35,534 crore was committed by the central government for this scheme till 2025-26, and it is estimated that about 4 crore youth from the SC community will be benefitted during this period," he said.

Post-Matric Scholarship and DBT

Kataria noted that apart from increasing the central share in the scheme, the government has brought in several process improvements to avoid delays in payment of scholarships using the direct benefit transfer (DBT) system.

Underscoring the importance of education, he said, "Time and again Prime Minister Narendra Modi has emphasised the impact of quality education and its importance in moulding an individual to overcome the influences of ignorance and superstition in achieving their maximum potential, thereby transforming them into productive assets for the nation-building process.”

In another statement, the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment said the Union government has released an amount of Rs 39.68 crore as central assistance to Madhya Pradesh under the centrally sponsored scheme of Post-Matric Scholarship for OBC Students during the year 2020-21. Earlier Rs 20 crore was released to the state government on an ad-hoc basis on June 12, 2020 and Rs 19.86 crore on September 22, 2020, it said.

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