Students get Rs 3,000-cr bonanza

The UPA government today announced schemes worth more than Rs 3,000 crore for different sections of students. All these will be operational from the current financial year.

The biggest of the schemes, Inclusive Education of the Disabled at Secondary Stage (IEDSS), will have a corpus of Rs 1,260.80 crore during the 11th Five-Year Plan period (2007-12).

“Disabled children from Class VIII of government, local bodies and government-aided schools will be identified for enrolment in the secondary stage. An estimated 520,000 disabled children will be provided education in inclusive settings during the 11th Plan period. The settings would also be made disabled-friendly in terms of infrastructure, resource support, teaching learning material etc,” Finance Minister P Chidambaram said.

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) also approved a Rs 1,000-crore scholarship scheme for college and university students during the 11th Plan period.

“The scheme will help meritorious students belonging to poorer sections of the society meet their day-to-day expenses while pursuing college or university education,” said Chidambaram.

Another scheme — Scholarship for Higher Education (SHE) — was approved as a component of the Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research (INSPIRE) scheme at a total cost of Rs 820 crore. This includes Rs 20 crore as the implementation cost. This scheme will provide scholarships and mentoring through summer attachment to performing researchers.
 

OTHER CABINET DECISIONS

* Transfer of sentenced persons between the Government of India and Israel. This would enable the prisoners to be near their families and help the process of their social rehabilitation

* An autonomous Institute of Nano Science & Technology, at a cost of Rs 142.45 crore, will be set up at Mohali

* Social-security agreement between France and India and an MoU with Bahrain to benefit the Indian emigrant workers, especially the unskilled and housemaids

* Agreement with Latvia for avoidance of double taxation

* Air services agreement with the Maldives

Ahead of the festive season, the CCEA also decided to provide Rs 79.70 crore towards liquidating outstanding statutory dues, salary and wages for a period of five months (January to May) for 10 loss-making central public sector enterprises. The companies include Bharat Wagon, Hindustan Cables, HMT Ltd and Hindustan photo Films Ltd.