ihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Friday said that students belonging to backward classes (BC), extremely backward classes (EBC), scheduled castes (SC) and scheduled tribes (ST), will continue to receive the post-matric scholarships in order to pursue higher studies.
“Misgivings are being spread vis-a-vis post-matriculation scholarship. It will continue till 2016-17. Those (students) who have been availing scholarships will continue to avail it (scholarship) till completion of their education,” Kumar said during the debate on state’s budget 2017-18.
He also made it clear that through a proper verification that the concerned department would ensure that scholarships are given only to genuine students enrolled in genuine institutions as instances have been found that students enrolled with “bogus institutions too have availed scholarships meant for SC categories.
He said that the government will carry out study and review about the student credit card scheme after the completion of 2017-18 in order to find out whether or not the scheme has benefitted students belonging to SC, ST, EBC and BC.
He added that students cannot avail the benefit of both the schemes. “It will be completely optional for students to avail either the Student Credit Card facility or the post-matriculation scholarship,” he said.
“We thought that we will not have to give the scholarship to anyone as we have launched a universal credit card scheme for students,” the CM said.
Stating that ‘Student Credit Card’ is completely different from the ‘education loan’ given by banks, Kumar said that state government has come out with the scheme in consultation with banks. “In education loan, the union ministry of HRD gives guarantee to banks on the loan while the state government gives guarantee to banks for not only the credit but also gives guarantee on interest,” he said.
