Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has revived many welfare programmes for students of Other Backward Communities in his Budget which were announced in his past Budgets but were put on the backburner.
The government has promised to relaunch the ‘Arivu’ scheme under which education loan up to a maximum of ₹1 lakh with 2% interest will be provided to students of OBC communities pursuing professional courses like Engineering, Medical, etc.
“Under the ‘Vidyasiri’ scheme, for the students who have not obtained admission in government hostels, an amount of ₹15,000 was provided for food and accommodation. During our government’s tenure, assistance of ₹432 crore was provided for a total of 3.6 lakh students. Unfortunately, this scheme was not properly implemented during the tenure of the previous government in 2020-21, 2021-22 and 2022-23. As this scheme plays an important role in increasing the enrolment of students belonging to the OBCs in higher education, the scheme will be continued with renewed vigor in the current year,” he announced.
To encourage the enrolment of students belonging to the OBCs in higher education, a post-matric scholarship of ₹881 crore was granted to 24 lakh students. The discontinued programme will be now relaunched.
“During the tenure of our government, a grant of ₹17 crore was sanctioned to the students who pursued higher education in foreign universities. But, the previous government neglected the scheme. This programme will also be continued by our government by providing an interest-free loan facility of ₹20 lakh to each student at the cost of ₹10 crore,” Mr. Siddaramaiah said.
