Y.S. RANA , CHANDIGARH—Education Department of Chandigarh Administration has been effectively implementing the direct benefit transfer (DBT) post-metric scholarships scheme of the Central Government. The department has distributed post-metric scholarships more than Rs 4 crore to 4306 students under centrally sponsored scholarship scheme up to March 31, 2015 compared to last year Rs 2.70 crore to 2203 students.
The official of the education department said that scholarships worth Rs 4,04,02,556 crore post-metric scholarships have been disbursed to 4306 beneficiary up to March 31, 2015 and no case of rejection was pending with the department. These are awarded to bona fide students of Chandigarh who are studying anywhere in the country either in government private colleges or universities. The scheme also covers vocational and technical courses in ITI affiliated with NCVT, said the official.
Dwelling on the details Mr Hans said that the maximum beneficiaries belonged to scheduled caste SC). Scholarships worth over Rs Rs 2.84 crore has been distributed to 3305 SC students; Rs 43.60 lakh to 335 OBC students; Rs 110.38 lakh to 238 students belonging to minority community and Rs 7.50 lakh to 43 merit-cum-means students of Chandigarh under centrally sponsored post-matric scheme. Besides, nine scholarships worth Rs 9,000 were distributed to meritorious students of Chandigarh.
Mr Bikram Rana, who is the nodal officer of 11 centrally sponsored schemes being implemented by the Chandigarh Administration said that Chandigarh has distributed scholarship amount to all the eligible students through Aadhar linked system for transparency and ensured money directly went to beneficiary’s account. “No post matric scholarship case is pending with us,” he said.
Keeping the urgency of the matter, staff involved in the process sat extra time to complete the process and they achieved it. The first phase of DBT covered post and pre-matric scholarship for students belong to SC; OBC; minority communities and merit holders. He further revealed that they have completed the process within stipulated time. They have made elaborate efforts to complete the process on time. “The DBT is an important scheme of Central Government and requires time bound implementation so that the benefit reaches the beneficiaries well in time,” he said.
The department has taken the pilot project as a challenge and with the full cooperation from the Chandigarh Administration they have made strenuous efforts and coordinated with the officials of Unique identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to provide EID and UID mapping files so that UID numbers could be fed in the beneficiaries’ data and ensured no eligible beneficiary was left out of the scheme, said Mr Rana.
Due to economic hardship a number of talented students could not pursue further higher study the government step to provide scholarships to such students has enabled a number of such students to obtain higher level of education resulting in their overall educational and economic development. The Scheme provides for 100 per cent Central Assistance to the State Governments and UT Administrations over and above the respective committed liability of the State/UT.