Govt to reimburse 50% of backward students’ total fee
There is going to be a windfall of social justice in Maharashtra.
By TNN |
MUMBAI: There is going to be a windfall of social justice in Maharashtra. This academic session onwards, the state government will reimburse 50% of the total fee (tuition, examination, and other miscellaneous fee) of students belonging to a range of social and economic classes for all professional courses run by private colleges that are not entitled for government grant. The move covers more than 2.12 lakh seats from the government quota in private professional colleges and it is estimated to put a burden of Rs 250 crore on the state exchequer in the first year itself.
Students belonging to scheduled castes (SC), scheduled tribes (ST), nomadic tribes (NT), other backward classes (OBC), and significantly, those from the economically backward class (EBC), are eligible for benefit. Prominent professional courses which the proposal covers include engineering, medical, bio-technology, business management, master of computer applications, education science (B.Ed and D.Ed), veterinary science, fisheries sciences, dairy development, and animal husbandry. The Cabinet approved the proposal on Tuesday. CM Vilasrao Deshmukh said the government had only revived a scheme which was discontinued two years back.
Fee structure would be fixed by a committee formed under the Supreme Court directives. There are more than 2.12 lakh seats in the government quota in private professional colleges in the state. Rough calculations by the state for reimbursing 50% fee for all these seats peg the total cost of one academic session at Rs 250 crore. The reimbursement would cover admission to fist year of professional course and also the fee for the complete tenure of the courses.
“These are tentative figures. Basically, the government would reimburse fee as per the fee structure worked out by the committee,” minister for social justice Chandrakant Handore told ET. Mr Handore is the one who has piloted this proposal over the last couple of years. The original proposal mooted by Mr Handore covered only SC students but chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh recommended a joint proposal from all relevant ministries. The original proposal would have been applicable to around 26,000 seats reserved for SC students but the revised proposal has widened the scope of the benefit by extending it to other castes and groups as well.
Students belonging to scheduled castes (SC), scheduled tribes (ST), nomadic tribes (NT), other backward classes (OBC), and significantly, those from the economically backward class (EBC), are eligible for benefit. Prominent professional courses which the proposal covers include engineering, medical, bio-technology, business management, master of computer applications, education science (B.Ed and D.Ed), veterinary science, fisheries sciences, dairy development, and animal husbandry. The Cabinet approved the proposal on Tuesday. CM Vilasrao Deshmukh said the government had only revived a scheme which was discontinued two years back.
Fee structure would be fixed by a committee formed under the Supreme Court directives. There are more than 2.12 lakh seats in the government quota in private professional colleges in the state. Rough calculations by the state for reimbursing 50% fee for all these seats peg the total cost of one academic session at Rs 250 crore. The reimbursement would cover admission to fist year of professional course and also the fee for the complete tenure of the courses.
“These are tentative figures. Basically, the government would reimburse fee as per the fee structure worked out by the committee,” minister for social justice Chandrakant Handore told ET. Mr Handore is the one who has piloted this proposal over the last couple of years. The original proposal mooted by Mr Handore covered only SC students but chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh recommended a joint proposal from all relevant ministries. The original proposal would have been applicable to around 26,000 seats reserved for SC students but the revised proposal has widened the scope of the benefit by extending it to other castes and groups as well.
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