The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has started the process for registration of students from Jammu and Kashmir for Prime Minister’s Special Scholarship Scheme (PMSSS).The online registration under PMSSS for academic session 2017-18 will be open upto 15 May 2017. Students having domicile of J&K who have passed Class 12th examination in academic session 2015-16 and 2016-17 from J&K State Board of School Education or CBSE affiliated schools within J&K are only eligible for registration.The students can register online on the link: www.aicte-jk-scholarship-gov.in.Under PMSSS scholarship upto Rs 30000 per annum per students is available for general courses, upto Rs 1.25 lakh per annum per student for engineering courses and upto Rs 3 lakh per annum per student for medical/dental courses. Besides, every student is entitled upto Rs 1 lakh per annum as maintenance charges. The students taking admission, by virtue of their own merit, in institutions like IITs, NITs, Medical Colleges, Dental Colleges and Central Universities outside J&K are also eligible for scholarship under PMSSS.While the tuition fee of the students admitted under PMSSS is being directly transferred by AICTE to the concerned colleges, the maintenance charges, including hostel fee, books and stationary and other incidentals are being transferred into the account of the concerned student under Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT).For the previous financial year Rs 75 crore worth scholarships were available to J&K students under PMSSS.
Out of 5000 seats available under PMSSS for J&K last year, around 3500 students secured admission in various professional and other colleges outside the State. These included 2400 students admitted for engineering courses and 850 students in general courses besides 160 students for medical courses.Most of the students from J&K had secured admission in some of the reputed colleges across the country last year. These include 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.Pertinently, the state’s Education Department and the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) have fine-tuned the admission procedure under PMSSS to ensure admission of students only in the recognized and reputed colleges of the country.The role of the touts, who earlier misused the scheme and fleeced the gullible students, has been completely eliminated, and the scheme has been refurbished to make it beneficial for the students from J&K.Pertinently, J&K’s Minister for Education, Syed Mohammad Altaf Bukhari had recently called on Union Minister for Human Resource Development, Mr Prakash Javadekar seeking inclusion of more courses under PMSSS and waiving off upper income limit and also covering matriculates with diplomas and Post Graduation Courses under PMSSS.