Post News Network
Bhubaneswar, Dec 2: Students belonging to minority communities should have Aadhaar cards to receive post-matriculation scholarships as the state government has decided to make Aadhaar mandatory for all availing all financial benefits.
“The processing of applications for sanctioning and payment of post-matric scholarships cannot be considered without seeding of Aadhaar numbers to bank accounts of beneficiaries,” stated SC welfare department director RC Sai in a missive issued to all district collectors.
Ministry of social justice and empowerment, ministry of tribal affairs and ministry of minority affairs have also desired to submit digitised data of beneficiaries to process applications for sanction and payment of post-matric scholarship to SC, ST, OBC and minority students with effect from 2014-15, Sai clarified in his letter.
The director also asked the collectors to furnish district-wise data from beneficiaries and upload them on the Aadhaar numbers in Prerana web portal by December 20, this year.
Talking to Orissa POST, a senior official of SC, ST development department said, “Different ministries under the Union government have directed us make Aadhaar numbers mandatory to take benefits of pre-matric and post-matric scholarships, but we are planning to implement it only for post-maric students.”
To make the procedure of allotment transparent, the students’ bank accounts should be linked to the Aadhaar cards. Also, the money should be directly transferred to the students’ accounts instead of depositing it in the accounts of the educational institutions where they study, the official said.
“We have asked the DWOs to organise awareness campaigns for this facility and direct the students to register themselves if they do not have Aadhaar numbers,” said another official of the department.
The Aadhaar-linked benefit schemes have been introduced in many states like Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh.