Kerala government allocates Rs 200 crore for OEC post-matric scholarship

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Kerala government on Friday said it has allocated an additional Rs 200 crore for the post-matric scholarship distribution of students belonging to the Other Eligible Communities (OEC) category.

With this, the government has allocated Rs 5,326 crore this year, till now, on scholarships for Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST), Other Backward Classes (OBC) and OEC categories, a statement, issued by the office of state Finance Minister K N Balagopal, said.

Balagopal said that the Rs 200 crore was made available for the distribution of scholarships to students belonging to OEC and Socially and Educationally Backward Classes (SEBC) categories. This year, Rs. 240 crore was allocated in the budget and it was allowed earlier.

"Now Rs 200 crore has been allowed as an additional allocation," the statement said. With this, the arrears under this category can be cleared in full, it said. It further said that last year, Rs 40 crore was allocated in the budget for the scholarships, but the government ended up distributing around Rs 358 crore which included arrears of previous years.

The statement also said that while the first Pinarayi government distributed Rs 3,853 crore on scholarships for students from the marginalised communities, during the Oommen Chandy government, only Rs 2,069 crore was spent.