New Delhi: The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi today announced the Center for “Post-Matric Scholarship for Students belonging to Scheduled Castes (PMS-SC)” to benefit more than 4 crore Scheduled Caste students in the next 5 years. The sponsored scheme has been approved with major and transformational changes so that they can successfully complete their higher education.
The Cabinet has approved a total investment of Rs 59,048 crore, of which the central government will spend Rs 35,534 crore (60 percent) and the remaining amount will be spent by the state governments. The scheme will replace the existing “committed liability” system and the central government will have greater participation in this important scheme.
The scheme has helped scheduled caste students to continue any post-matriculation course starting from class 11th. In this scheme, the government bears the cost of education.
The Central Government is committed to further enhance these efforts so that the GER (Higher Education) of Scheduled Castes can reach the national level within a period of 5 years.
The details are as follows:
The plan emphasizes nominating poor-to-poor students, making timely payments, comprehensive accountability, continuous monitoring, and complete transparency.
A campaign will be launched to nominate students of 10th grade from poor-to-poor families in higher education courses as per their wish. It is estimated that 1.36 crore poorest students who cannot currently continue their education after 10th standard will be brought under the higher education system in the next five years.
The scheme will be operated on an online platform with strong security measures which will ensure transparency, accountability, efficiency, and time-bound support without delay.
The state will conduct impregnable checks on the online portal of eligibility, caste status, Aadhaar identity, and bank account details.
Under this scheme, financial assistance will be withdrawn to the students through DBT mode and by using a preferential basis enabled payment system. Starting from the year 2021-22, the Centre’s share (60 percent) in this scheme will be released directly in the bank accounts of the students through DBT mode as per the schedule.
The monitoring mechanism will be further strengthened and social audits will be done by conducting third-year annual assessments and through semi-annual self-audited reports of each institution.
Central assistance, which was around Rs 1100 crore per year during the year 2017-18 to 2019-20, will be increased more than 5 times during the year 2020-21 to 2025-26 to about Rs 6,000 crore per year.