Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar on Wednesday assured students that no ne of them will face any difficulty in getting scholarship amount on time.
Addressing a Press conference, Javadekar said that Government has thoroughly reviewed the system and from the month of November the Ministry has started crediting each scholarship beneficiary account with the scholarship amount by 30th of each month.
He stated that a Special grant of Rs 250 crore has also been sanctioned to complete the backlog of scholarship amount and all backlog has been cleared now. He further announced that nearly 2.44 lakh students get benefit of various scholarships which are run by MHRD, AICTE and UGC. “Government is spending nearly Rs 4,000 crore amount on these scholarship schemes,” said Javadekar.
He further named various scholarship schemes which are running successfully under MHRD, AICTE and UGC. National Means-Cum Merit Scholarship Scheme, Central Sector Scheme of Scholarship for College and University Students and Special Scholarship Scheme for Jammu and Kashmir under MHRD, Scholarship for Girls (PRAGATI), Scholarship for Differently abled Students under AICTE and “ISHAN UDAY” Special Scholarship Scheme for North Eastern Region under UGC, JRF etc are some of the noteworthy scholarship schemes of HRD Ministry, he said.
The Union Minister also informed that Study in India programme has taken off well and nearly 2,000 students have got admission in selected 100 top Indian institutions for the first season. He said that we are expecting nearly 20,000 foreign students from 30 Asian, African, Middle East and Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries under this program in next 3 years.
The Minister also shared details about ambitious ‘Study in India’ programme being conducted by the Centre. He termed it to be an innovative initiative to attract students from 30 partner countries in South Asia, South-East Asia, Middle East and Africa to come and experience the very best of academic learning at the top institutions in India. He said the target about Study in India programme is to get about 20,000 students during the next three academic years at the about 100 partners institutes which includes the IITs, IIMs and other prestigious academic and technicalinstitutes.
“The programme includes setting-up of a large portal, call centre, social media campaign, branding, event management and setting up of a facilitation centre to attract more and more foreign students towards Indian Institutions,” said the HRD Minister.