Post Matric Scholarship To Students Belonging To Scheduled Castes (PMS-SC)

Post Matric Scholarship To Students Belonging To Scheduled Castes (PMS-SC)

Part of: GS Prelims and GS-II – Policies and Interventions

In news 

• The Union Cabinet has recently approved major changes in the Centrally Sponsored Scheme ‘Post Matric Scholarship to students belonging to Scheduled Castes (PMS-SC)’ to benefit more than 4 Crore SC students in the next 5 years so that they can successfully complete their higher education.

Key takeaways

• A campaign will be launched to enrol the students, from the poorest households passing the 10th standard, in the higher education courses of their choice in the next 5 years.
• The scheme will be run on an online platform with robust cyber security measures that would assure transparency and timely delivery of the assistance.
• The States will undertake fool-proof verification of the eligibility, caste status, Aadhar identification and bank account details on the online portal.
• Transfer of financial assistance to the students under the scheme shall be on DBT mode, and preferably using the Aadhar Enabled Payment System. 
• It shall start from from 2021-22. 
• The Central share shall be 60% in the scheme. 
• Monitoring mechanism will be further strengthened through conduct of social audits, annual third party evaluation, and half-yearly self-audited reports from each institution.
• The 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.