As many as 1,300 students from minority communities have received the Chief Minister’s Overseas Scholarship Scheme for Minorities (CM’s OSSM). A majority of the students who availed the scholarship is male.
A Right To Information request by activist Kareem Ansari of YouRTI.in showed that from the intake season of Spring 2018 to the intake seasons of Spring and Fall of 2020, a total of 1,300 students were given the scholarship. While the notification for FY 2021-22 was issued on November 26, 2021, the applications are now being scrutinised.
A breakup of the figures shows that 1,132 Muslims, 151 Christians, 11 Jains and six Sikh students received these scholarships. However, female beneficiaries of the scholarship were much less. According to data, while a total of 1,010 male students availed the scholarship, the number of females was only 290.
A closer look at the data shows that while 902 male students from the Muslim community availed the scholarship, 202 were women. As many as 10 male students and only one woman from the Jain community availed the scholarship. Three male Sikh students and an equal number of women students from the community were given the scholarship.
However, the trend in the Christian community was different with the number of female students availing the scholarship being higher — 84 as compared to 67 males.
According to data, a total of ₹269.44 crore for the scholarship has been disbursed till date.
