Union Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment, Virendra Kumar, has said that 90 out of 596 Scheduled Caste (SC) students studying in universities abroad, who applied for the National Overseas Scholarships, were awarded it in 2020-21.
In response to Villupuram MP D. Ravikumar’s question about the number of students awarded the National Overseas Scholarship in the last five years and the total annual strength of applications, he said, “108, 178, 97, 97 and 90 students respectively were awarded the scholarship for the years 2016-17, 2017-18, 2018-19, 2019-20 and 2020-21 respectively. And only 14, 6, 5, 8 and 8 disabled students were awarded the scholarships during the same period.”
The Minister also revealed that 535 (2016-17), 487 (2017-18), 379 (2018-19), 461 (2019-20) and 596 (2020-21) students had applied for the scholarships.
Mr. Ravikumar said that while allocation of funds is already low at ₹20 crore for the scheme, the budget is not being fully spent.
“In 2017-18 and 2018-19, only ₹3.13 crore and ₹5.97 crore has been spent. The DMK and Congress should come forward to oppose the Modi government that is preventing the Scheduled Caste students from receiving education,” the VCK leader said.
The Social Justice and Empowerment Ministry implements two National Overseas Scholarship Schemes – a financial assistance scheme for selected students from Scheduled Caste, denotified, nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes, landless agricultural labourers and traditional artisan categories for pursuing Masters and PhD-level courses abroad and the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities implements a similar scheme for selected students with disabilities for pursuing Masters and Ph.D courses.
