Centre approves major changes in PMS-SC, ensuring greater education access for SC students

Cabinet Committee on Ecomic Affairs (CCEA) on Wednesday approved significant changes in centrally sponsored 'Post Matric Scholarship to students belonging to Scheduled Castes' (PMS-SC). se reforms are said to benefit over four crore scheduled castes students in successfully completing ir higher education in next five years.  cabinet meeting was chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. prime minister took to Twitter to state that scholarship will ensure greater access to students belonging to Scheduled Castes. Also, BJP National President JP Nadda took to Twitter to state that scheme will 'ensure timely payment to beneficiaries'.  

Total investment to tune of Rs 59,048 crore has been approved by Cabinet, of which, Rs 35,534 crore would be spent by Centre while remaining balance would be spent by state governments, Union Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment, Thawarchand Gehlot said while addressing media.

se reforms would replace existing committed liability system and would lead to greater involvement of Centre in scheme. With help of PMS-SC, Scheduled Castes students would be able to pursue any post-matric course starting from class 11 with government meeting cost of education.  focus of scheme would be on enrolling poorest students, timely payments, comprehensive accountability, continuous monitoring and total transparency, an official release from government stated.

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Highlights of  PMS-SC scheme

• A campaign will be launched to enrol students, from poorest households passing 10th standard, in higher education courses of ir choice. It is estimated that 1.36 Cr such poorest students, who are currently t continuing ir education beyond 10th standards would be brought into higher education system in next 5 years. 
• scheme will be run on an online platform with robust cybersecurity measures that would assure transparency, accountability, efficiency, and timely delivery of assistance without any delays.
• States will undertake fool-proof verification of eligibility, caste status, Aadhar identification and bank account details on online portal.
• Transfer of financial assistance to students under scheme shall be on DBT mode, and preferably using Aadhar Enabled Payment System. Starting from 2021-22,  Central share (60%) in scheme would be released on DBT mode directly into bank accounts of students as per fixed time schedule, after ensuring that concerned State Government has released ir share.
• Monitoring mechanism will be furr strengned through conduct of social audits, annual third party evaluation, and half-yearly self-audited reports from each institution. 
• Central Assistance which was around Rs 1100 crore annually during 2017-18 to 2019-20 would be increased more than 5 times to be around Rs 6000 core annually during 2020-21 to 2025-26.

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