The counseling of students for admission in various colleges outside the State under the Prime Minister’s Special Scholarship Scheme (PMSSS) began at designated centres in Srinagar and Jammu today.In Kashmir, the counseling is being held at Amar Singh College, Srinagar while in Jammu, the counseling is being held at Government College for Women, Gandhi Nagar.As per the merit, Ms Palak Gupta was the first student who got admission under PMSSS in the prestigious Lady Shriram College, New Delhi. Mohammad Suhaib of district Pulwama got admission in BA (Honors) at the famous St Stephens College, New Delhi.Anmol Sharma of Jammu secured admission in Hindu College, Harpreet Kour in Delhi College of Engineering and Tahil Kundal in Delhi College of Engineering.
Similarly a girl from district Baramulla secured admission in Delhi College of Engineering while another student from the same district got admission in Hans Raj College of Delhi University in bio-sciences.Minister for Education, Mr Naeem Akhtar visited the counseling centre at Amar Singh College here this morning to personally review the arrangements there.Talking to media, the Minister said that 6600 students have registered for PMSSS across the state and their counseling will continue till 3 August 2016 with 400 students being counseled each day. He said besides general courses, 2000 seats are this year available to the J&K students under PMSSS in the NBA accredited engineering colleges across the country while 369 seats are available in the Nursing Colleges.
Giving the breakup of seats available under PMSSS, the Minister said 10 supernumerary seats are available in each AICTE approved engineering college with a limit of two seats per branch, two supernumerary seats are available in general stream in UGC approved colleges and three supernumerary seats are available in Nursing Institutions. He said for the current financial year Rs 75 crore worth scholarships are available to J&K students 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 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.Mr Akhtar said the State Government and the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) have worked out a fool-proof mechanism to ensure admission of JK students only in the recognized and best colleges of the country under PMSSS. 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.
He said in view of the prevailing law and order situation, the Government has made adequate boarding and lodging arrangements for the students and their guardians at the hostels in Amar Singh College, SP College and Women’s College, M A Road Srinagar. He said any student, who wants to avail the boarding and lodging facility can approach the nodal officer at Amar Singh College, Srinagar for the same.The Minister said that if a student misses the counseling on the assigned date, due to some unavoidable reason, he/she can appear on the next date. “However, such students will get the slot and the college available as per the merit of that very day on which they appear for the counseling,” he said and added that the Deputy Commissioners and district SSPs have been asked to facilitate the hassle-free movement of the students for the counseling.The Minister expressed gratitude to Prof Anil Saharsabudhi, Chairman, AICTE and his team who had specially arrived in Srinagar to oversee the arrangements for PMSSS counseling.