In order to extend financial assistance to the students belonging to the scheduled castes, the Punjab Government has released Rs. 280.81 crore to disburse for various scholarships during the month of 2013-14 for students of the scheduled castes studying in degree courses, medical education, engineering courses and diploma and certificate courses for non-refundable fees.Disclosing this here today, Punjab Scheduled Castes and Backward Classes Minister S. Gulzar Singh Ranike said that parents’ having annual income of 2.50 lakh would be eligible to get these scholarships. He said that 2.64 lakh students of 2000 institutions were being given scholarship for the year 2012-13 from out of the sanctioned amount of non-refundable fees. He also said that Rs.31.75 crore has also been released during the year 2013-14 for this purpose.
The minister further said that Rs.230 to Rs.1200/- per month to the students have been disbursed as scholarship amount. Besides this, Rs/1600/- for Educational Tours, Rs.1600/- for Thesis Writing and Rs.1200/- for Books was also being given by the Punjab government. The demand of scholarship was sent to Welfare Department by the concerned institutions. Fees amount was sent though on-line bank management system to the concerned institutions and maintenance amount of the students transferred to their bank accounts.The Minister further said that on-line scheme under Ashirwad Portal has been launched from 2013-14 for Post Metric for the students of SC and OBC. Under this scheme which students could submit their application on-line on their own and all process, sanction and payments have been made on line. 3.65 lakh students have been registered with portal till now where as 3.11 lakh applications have been received on line. As many as 206927 students belonging to Scheduled castes and 68429 students from OBC are registered with this portal which would get benefit during the current financial year.