Over 3,500 J&K students availed scholarships worth Rs 75 crore

This was due to the enhancement of the supernumerary quota in various engineering branches from 2 to 10

With over 3,500 students from Jammu and Kashmir availing scholarships worth Rs 75 crore for the academic session 2016-17, Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar said the scholarship scheme has been a big draw this year.

"Due to the transparency brought in by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the scheme and conduct of 10 awareness workshops, the special scholarship scheme for Jammu and Kashmir students has been a big draw this year...More than 5,000 students of the state had applied for this scholarship," Javadekar said.

Overall scholarships worth Rs 75 crore have been given this year under this scheme, he added.

The special scholarship scheme for students to pursue higher education outside the state has received tremendous response this year as awareness workshops had been organised in Kupwara, Anantnag, Srinagar, Pulwama, Jammu, Doda, Rajouri, Kathua, Kargil and Leh in May this year, an official statement said.

Earlier the quota for Jammu and Kashmir students in engineering colleges was limited to only 250, but this year 1,430 students were granted admission in several reputed engineering colleges.

This was due to the enhancement, for the first time, of the supernumerary quota in various engineering branches from 2 to 10.

This year, hotel management and nursing courses were also included under this special scholarship scheme. While 15 students were admitted to reputed hotel management institutes, 284 students secured admission in reputed nursing colleges.

Besides this 177 students of the state got admission in medical colleges on their own merit. In general stream, 1,014 students got admission.

Overall total scholarships awarded to students of Jammu and Kashmir this year is 3,584 of which 1,329 students were from Kashmir Valley, 26 from Ladakh and 2,255 from Jammu. Under this special scholarship scheme, up to Rs 1.25 lakh tuition fee is borne by the central government besides up to Rs 1 lakh is paid to students for meeting hostel and food charges.

For general courses, a tuition fee of up to Rs 30,000 is paid by the central government along with up to Rs 1 lakh towards hostel and food charges.

The tuition fee is transferred to institutes directly so that when the student approaches college for admission, the college will not insist on depositing academic fees.

The hostel and food allowance of Rs 1 lakh is transferred to the account of student in 2 installments. Through centralised counseling for allotment of supernumerary seats was conducted between July 26 and August 3 at Srinagar and Jammu simultaneously.

To avail of this scholarship scheme, student should have passed Class XII from Jammu and Kashmir and his or her family income must be less than Rs 6 lakh per annum.

In the academic year of 2014-15, the ministry introduced a transparent system to streamline the process of scholarship application and disbursement. With the use of technology, transparency and accountability of the process has been brought in, the statement added.