The special scholarship scheme for students of Jammu and Kashmir to pursue higher education outside the state has received tremendous response this year because of awareness workshops had been organized in Kupwara, Anantnag, Srinagar, Pulwama, Jammu, Doda, Rajouri, Kathua, Kargil and Leh in the month of May this year.“Because of the transparency brought in by the Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi in the scheme and conduct of these 10 awareness workshops, the special scholarship scheme for J&K students has been a big draw this year… More than 5000 students of Jammu and Kashmir had applied for this scholarship,” HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar said. Overall Rs 75 crore worth scholarships have been given this year under this scheme, he added.Earlier the quota for J&K Students in Engineering Colleges was limited to only 250, but this year 1430 students were granted admission in various 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, i.e. quota of 10 seats for Jammu and Kashmir students in each Engineering college over and above the sanctioned strength. This year, Hotel Management and Nursing were also included under this special scholarship scheme.While 15 students were admitted to reputed hotel management Institutes, 284 students secured admission in various reputed nursing colleges. Besides this 177 students of Jammu and Kashmir got admission in Medical colleges on their own merit.In General stream 1014 students got admission. Overall total scholarships awarded to students of Jammu and Kashmir this year is 3584 of which 1329 students were from Kashmir Valley, 26 from Ladakh and 2255 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 allowances of Rs 1 lakh is transferred to the account of student in 2 installments through DBT.Centralised counseling for allotment of supernumerary seats was conducted between July 26 and August 3, 2016 at Srinagar and Jammu simultaneously. To avail of this scholarship scheme, student of Jammu and Kashmir must have passed Class XII from Jammu and Kashmir and his or her family income must be less than Rs 6 lakhs per annum. In the academic year of 2014-15, MHRD 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. Students are required to upload their documents on the website http://aicte-jk-scholarship.in/ for processing their scholarship claim.