Under the Prime Minister’s Special Scholarship Scheme (PMSSS), as many as 3554 students from Jammu & Kashmir have secured admission in various professional and other colleges outside the State in many of the reputed institutions.
Giving details, a spokesperson of the Education Department said that the counseling under PMSSS, began on 26 July 201 and was simultaneously conducted at Amar Singh College and Government College for Women, Gandhi Nagar, Jammu.
He said this year response to the scheme was overwhelming and large number of students were registered under the scheme and secured admission in various streams including two new streams that were introduced from this admission session viz Hotel Management and Catering Technology (HMCT) and Nursing streams.
The spokesperson said that nearly 8000 students registered themselves for counseling including 3300 in Srinagar centre and 4500 in Jammu centre. He added that in Engineering stream 1778 seats were allotted to the students through counseling, while as 887 students were allotted seats in General stream. In the two new courses introduced this admission session around 300 seats were allotted to the students.
Besides, around 600 students who had secured admission in various institutions on their own were also given benefit of the scheme through this counselling.
The spokesman said that unlike last year when only 2 seats were being allotted per college to the students under PMSSS, this year 10 seats per college have been allotted.
He said that in comparison to the previous year more students have availed admission under the scheme. The State Education Department and the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has fine-tuned the admission procedure under PMSSS to ensure admission of students only in the recognized and reputed colleges of the country. He said role of the touts, who earlier misused the scheme and fleeced the students, has been completely done away with, and the scheme has been refurbished to make it beneficial for the students.
Moreover, the spokesperson said that students who secured admission in various professional and other colleges outside the State under the PMSSS can contact Mr Manoj Kejriwal, Director, Special Scholarship, Union HRD Ministry on phone numbers 011-26172932, 07503039400 for any information or issue related to admissions and allotment of courses.
The spokesperson also said that for the current financial year, an amount of Rs 75 crore worth scholarships is available to J&K students under PMSSS. He said while upto Rs 30000 per annum would be available as scholarship under PMSSS for general courses, upto Rs 1.25 lakh per annum would be available for engineering courses and upto Rs 3 lakh per annum for medical/dental courses. Besides, every student would be entitled upto Rs 1 lakh per annum as maintenance charges, he said and added that the students taking admission, by virtue of their own merit, in institutions like IITs, NITs and Central Universities outside J&K are also eligible for scholarship under PMSSS.
The spokesperson said that the tuition fee of the students admitted under PMSSS would be directly transferred by AICTE to the concerned college. Moreover, the maintenance charges, including hostel fee, books and stationary and other incidentals would be transferred into the account of the concerned student under Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT).
