More than 3000 students from Jammu and Kashmir have secured admission in various professional and other colleges outside the State under the Prime Minister’s Special Scholarship Scheme (PMSSS).This information was given to the Minister for Education, Naeem Akhtar during his visit to the Amar Singh College Srinagar, where the first round of counseling under PMSSS concluded today.The Minister was informed that out of 2401 seats in engineering, 2372 were filled, while out of 1089 seats in general courses, 842 were filled till this evening. He was informed that besides 159 seats filled in medical courses will be also covered under PMSSS taking the total number of seats to filled 3373. This is the highest number of students ever who have made it to various colleges under PMSSS. Pertinently, last year only 900 students had secured admission under PMSSS in various colleges outside the State.The counseling under PMSSS, which began on 26 July 2016, was simultaneously conducted at Amar Singh College and Government College for Women, Gandhi Nagar, Jammu.
The Minister said 6027 students from J&K had registered under PMSSS for admission to various colleges outside the state for the current academic session. “It is heartening to note that most of the students have made it to some of the reputed colleges in the country including Delhi College of Engineering, Chandigarh College of Engineering and Technology, St Stephens College, Delhi, University Institute of Engineering and Technology, Rohtak, Lady Shri Ram College for Women, New Delhi, Birla Institute of Technology, Jharkhand, Rajiv Gandhi Government Engineering College, Himachal Pradesh (HP), Netaji Subash Institute of Technology, Delhi and DAV College, Haryana,” he said and added that the state’s Education Department and the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) had fine-tuned the admission procedure under PMSSS to ensure admission of students only in the recognized and reputed colleges of the country. He said role of the touts, who earlier misused the scheme and fleeced the students, has been completely done away with, and the scheme has been refurbished to make it beneficial for the students.
Responding to the plea of some agitating students who had qualified the 10+2 examination in 2014-15 that they should be also considered for admission under PMSSS, the Minister assured them that the Government would ensure that no seat goes unfilled and second round of counseling would start immediately after the results of NEET and CET are out. “As per PMSSS rules the first preference is to be given to the students who have qualified their 10+2 examination during the last academic session, but we would ensure that the unfilled seats in reserved categories and general courses are converted into engineering seats so that maximum number of students including those from 2014-15 batch are accommodated,” he said.The Minister said for the current financial year Rs 75 crore worth scholarships are available to J&K students under PMSSS. He said while upto Rs 30000 per annum would be available as scholarship under PMSSS for general courses, upto Rs 1.25 lakh per annum would be available for engineering courses and upto Rs 3 lakh per annum for medical/dental courses. “Besides, every student would be entitled upto Rs 1 lakh per annum as maintenance charges,” he said and added that the students taking admission, by virtue of their own merit, in institutions like IITs, NITs and Central Universities outside J&K are also eligible for scholarship under PMSSS.
The Minister said while the tuition fee of the students admitted under PMSSS would be directly transferred by AICTE to the concerned college, the maintenance charges, including hostel fee, books and stationary and other incidentals would be transferred into the account of the concerned student under Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT).The Minister expressed gratitude to the officials of AICTE, the Education Department, staff of various colleges, Deputy Commissioner and district SSPs for facilitating smooth counseling of students under PMSSS, despite law and order problems.The Minister also expressed gratitude to Prof Anil Saharsabudhi, Chairman, AICTE and Dr Mir Nisar, Jt Secretary, University Grants Commission (UGC) who had specially arrived in Srinagar to oversee the arrangements for PMSSS counseling.Pertinently, Palak Gupta of Jammu was the first student who got admission under PMSSS in the prestigious Lady Shriram College, New Delhi while Mohammad Suhaib of Pulwama got admission in BA (Honors) at the reputed St Stephens College, New Delhi. (KNS)