No austerity in funding coaching of minority students

Updated on: Friday, December 18, 2009

New Delhi: The government today ruled out adopting austerity measures while allocating funds for coaching students belonging to SC, ST, women and minorities during the 11th Plan.

"Question of applying austerity measures in these schemes does not arise," Human Resources Development Minister Kapil Sibal told Rajya Sabha during Question Hour. P Madhu (CPI-M) wanted to know the reason for the low allocation while pointing out that over Rs 20 crore was allocated during the 10th Plan period for coaching students belonging only to the minority communities.

During the 11th Plan, Rs 28 crore has been allocated for coaching students belonging to SC, ST, women and minorities. Sibal said 32,535 students benefited from the scheme in 10th Plan for which Rs 20.65 crore was spent. But the scheme was merged during the 11th Plan under development grants to institutions.

University Grants Commission (UGC) is running the coaching scheme in 88 state universities, 22 central universities and nine deemed universities, he said. This apart, the UGC has provided assistance to the tune of Rs 23 crore to four institutions including Aligarh Muslim University and Baba Saheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University, where there is concentration of students belonging to SC, ST, women
and minorities, for setting up Residential Coaching Academies which are scheduled to start from January 2010, he said.

To another question, Sibal said the Centre has asked Gujarat government to allot land near Gandhinagar for setting up an innovation university of world class standards. The Centre has decided to set up 14 such universities during 11th and 12th Plan.

No austerity in funding coaching of minority students

More Education news