The Kerala government will shortly come up with an order reallocating the scholarships for minority communities based on their population.
It was after a Kerala High Court order and the consensus reached at an all-party meeting that the government finalised the redistribution of scholarships. Earlier, the aid was distributed among Muslims and Latin Catholics and converted Christians on an 80:20 ratio.
Last year, 10,812 Muslim students had availed themselves of the C.H. Mohammed Koya scholarship for girls followed by 430 students belonging to Latin Catholic community and 98 from the converted Christian community. There is no clarity yet on the number of beneficiaries from the other Christian communities as they were not covered by the scheme earlier.
Apart from Muslims and Christians, Sikhs, Parsis, Jains, and Buddhists are enlisted as minority communities in the country. The government has decided to enhance the allocation for the C.H. Mohammed Koya scholarship scheme, which has the largest scholarship amount, so that none of the minority communities would lose the number of scholarships they were getting earlier. The scheme’s outlay, now ₹8 crore , will be enhanced to ₹10.83 crore.
With the revised distribution scheme, Muslim students would continue to get ₹6.4 crore under the C.H. scheme where as the Christian communities together would get ₹4.43 crore. The earlier allocation for the Christians was ₹1.6 crore.
Five other scholarships
Civil Services and ITC Fee reimbursement schemes (₹2.96 crore), CA/ICWA/CS scholarship (₹45 lakh), Prof. Joseph Mundassery scholarship (₹4.8 crore), Mother Teresa scholarship (₹50 lakh), and APJ Abdul Kalam scholarship (₹60 lakh) are the other educational scholarships offered by the State government to minorities.
It would require an additional allocation of ₹6.2 crore for the six scholarships together to ensure that no minority communities are denied their due. The additional support would take the total allocation for the schemes to ₹23.61 crore, according to the officials of the Minority Welfare Department, which is managing the programmes.
Eligibility criterion
An annual family income ceiling of ₹8 lakh has been fixed as one of the eligibility criteria, said A.B. Moideenkutty, director, Minorities Welfare Department.
While undergraduate students would get an annual allocation of ₹5,000 each under the scheme, postgraduate students would get ₹6,000 and students of professional courses, ₹7,000. Those staying in hostels would be provided an annual aid of ₹13,000.
Urdu students of Class X and Plus Two courses, belonging to all communities, who score ‘A Plus’ in exams would be eligible for an annual scholarship for ₹1,000. On an average, around 300 students would apply for the scheme, department sources said.
