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The government is working on an ambitious plan to track and bring all scheduled tribe students receiving pre-matric and post-matric scholarship under the ambit of Direct Benefit Transfers.
To this end, the Finance Ministry and the Ministry of Tribal Affairs are now working with State governments to seed Aadhaar numbers of these students with their bank accounts by August 20.
Fiat to states“If the Aadhaar number is either not linked to the application form or not seeded to the bank account, it may not be possible to ensure release of scholarship funds,” said the Ministry of Tribal Affairs in a recent letter, adding that all applications for the two schemes should be submitted on the government’s scholarship portal by August 31.
The move is a part of the government’s plan to use Aadhaar as an identifier for all Centrally-funded scholarship schemes to “facilitate direct and timely transfer of scholarships and avoid hardships to genuine and deserving students.”
The University Grants Commission (UGC) had also announced recently that all scholarships and fellowships would be linked to Aadhaar accounts and applicants would be expected to provide their Aadhaar number.
“Coordinating with States will help track all Scheduled Tribe students who receive these scholarships as they may be in remote areas. It will also help in opening bank accounts and Aadhaar seeding,” said an official. Banks have also been requested to help in opening of accounts. Enrolment for Aadhaar was expected to be completed by end of July. The Ministry had said that special camps can be organised in schools or scholarship holders should be taken to the nearest enrolment centre.
According to official data, over 21 lakh students benefitted from these two schemes in 2013-14. The pre-matric scheme provides a scholarship of at least ₹150 per month to ST students in class 9 and 10 with family income less than ₹2 lakh annually.
Similarly, the scheme for post-matric ST students provides a scholarship of between ₹ 230 per month and ₹1,200 for higher studies to students whose family income is less than ₹2.5 lakh annually.
In 2015-16, the Centre released ₹22,868.95 crore for pre-matric scholarship scheme and another ₹ 85,714.55 crore for the post-matric scholarship scheme.
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