Cabinet nod for MCM scholarship

“The scheme was announced in the 2007-08 Budget with a provision of Rs 750 crore,” Finance Minister P Chidambaram said after the Cabinet meeting on Friday. Since the amount set aside last year remained unspent, he said the scheme would be launched this year with a corpus of Rs 1,500 crore from this year. Under the scheme, one lakh scholarships will be offered to the students of Class IX to XII in schools run by the Government and local bodies. Students whose parents earn below 1.5 lakh per annum will be selected through state-level talent search tests conducted under the guidance of NCERT. Under the scheme, the provisions of reservation for different social groups will be applicable as per the state norms, said Chidambaram. All student beneficiaries will be issued ATMs for withdrawing their scholarship amount, which is fixed at Rs 500 per month.

The Cabinet, meanwhile, deferred the proposal to amendment the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export and Development Authority (APEDA) Act as Commerce Minister Kamal Nath was not present.