‘No reservation for minority students in minority educational institutions’

NEW DELHI: There is no provision for reservation for poor students of minority communities in minority educational institutions but there are schemes to educationally empower them, Union Minorities Affairs Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said in Rajya Sabha on Monday.

Students belonging to economically weaker sections with income eligibility criteria ranging from Rs one lakh to Rs 2.5 lakh per annum depending on schemes are eligible, he said during Question Hour.

“There is no provision for reservation for poor students of minority communities in minority educational institutes.

However, Ministry of Minority Affairs implements different schemes which facilitate education of students including those from economically weaker sections belonging to six centrally notified minority communities, namely Buddhists, Christians, Jains, Muslims, Sikhs and Zoroastrians (Parsis),” Naqvi said.

He said there are schemes including three centrally funded scholarship schemes of Pre-matric Scholarship, Post- matric

Scholarship and Merit-cummeans based Scholarship for which students belonging to families having income levels upto Rs one lakh to Rs 2.5 lakh per annum are eligible.

He said in the last 5 years, 3.20 crore scholarships have been awarded of which more than 60 per cent are girls and added funds to the tune of Rs 8916.31 crore were released.

Other schemes, he said, include Maulana Azad National Fellowship and Padho Pardesh besides Maulana Azad Education Foundation (MAEF) which provides Grant-in-aid for basic educational infrastructure and facilities in areas of concentration of educationally backward minorities which do not have adequate provisions.