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Central scholarship to deal with drop-out of students

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: The Union Cabinet’s Committee on Economic Affairs on Friday cleared a Centrally sponsored National Means-cum-Merit Scholarship to deal with the drop-out of students among the economically weaker sections at the secondary school level.

The scholarship would be awarded to meritorious students among the weaker sections at the rate of Rs. 6,000 a year for four years beginning with class IX. Each year, at least 1 lakh scholarships would be awarded based on a selection test to be held at the State-level for students of class VIII. It would be conducted along with the first stage selection test of the National Talent Search Examination conducted by the States under the guidance of the National Council of Education, Research and Training. Chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the CCEA decided to incur an expenditure of Rs. 3,004 crore for the scheme during the eleventh plan period. To fund it, a corpus of Rs. 750 crore will be created by the government with the State Bank of India during the current financial year. It will be augmented with the addition of similar amounts every year for three more years. The scheme will be open to students, whose parents have a total annual income of up to Rs.1.5 lakh from all sources and who study in government, local body and government-aided schools.

The Union Cabinet met on Friday and gave its approval for the signing of a memorandum of understanding with Denmark in the field of clean development mechanism projects. It will provide an institutional mechanism with Denmark for promotion of the Kyoto Protocol Clean Development Mechanism Projects and facilitate exchange of information between designated national authorities of India and Denmark to facilitate such projects.

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