Scholarship amounts under Social Justice Ministry not enough to meet costs: House panel

The amount of annual scholarship offered to Scheduled Caste (SC), Other Backward Classes (OBC), Denotified, Nomadic and Semi-Nomadic, Economically Weaker Section students under the gamut of educational schemes of the Social Justice Ministry are not enough to meet present day costs of getting “proper and quality education”, a departmental House panel on Social Justice has said in a report tabled in Parliament on Monday, recommending regular reviews of the scholarship amounts to “contain the inflation”.  

The panel went on to note other problems in the educational scholarship schemes administered by the Union Social Justice Ministry as well like scholarship disbursals spilling over to the next academic session, year after year.  

The committee, in its report, pointed out that the Department had spent ₹3,403.51 crore on educational scholarship schemes in FY 2024-25 till February 2025, compared to ₹6,410.09 crore in 2022-23 and ₹7,830.26 crore in 2023-24. Earlier this year, several scholars had reported delays in disbursal of fellowship amounts under the National Fellowship for OBCs and SCs.  

The panel also pointed out that several other flagship schemes of the Ministry – for livelihood assistance, skills-training, etc. – were fledgling, neither meeting their spending nor beneficiary targets, citing the performance of schemes like PM-VISVAS, PM-DAKSH, and Venture Capital Fund scheme for SCs and OBCs.  

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Social Justice and Empowerment made these remarks in its report on the Demands for Grants for the FY 2025-26. The panel, headed by Karnataka MP P.C. Mohan (BJP), also noted that about 72.5% of the Social Justice Department’s budgetary allocation is spent on scholarships and educational schemes, urging the government to focus on other schemes also and seek more funds accordingly if needed.

Scholarship schemes offered by the Ministry include post and pre matriculate scholarships, Top Class scholarships, the National Fellowship, and overseas scholarships for students from Scheduled Caste, Other Backward Classes, Extremely Backward Classes, Denotified tribes, and Economically Weaker Section backgrounds.  

Under the PM-VISVAS scheme, the House panel found that in FY 2024-25, just 13.05% of the allocated funds were spent on the interest subvention scheme for income-generating loans for SCs. Similarly, the government was able to spend just 8.3% of the allocated ₹11.95 crore for the same component for OBCs.  

The panel noted that the government’s target of benefitting 15 lakh beneficiaries by the end of 2025-26 under this scheme was “very difficult to achieve”. Starting in 2024-25, the scheme has given financial assistance of about ₹7.452 crore out of the allocated ₹251 crore, benefitting about 47,809 OBC and 44,006 SC individuals so far, the panel found. 

Under the Venture Capital Fund scheme for SC and OBC entrepreneurs, the House panel similarly found that till December 2024, just ₹393.87 crore of loans had been sanctioned to 143 SC-led companies and just ₹94.08 crore of loans had been sanctioned to 18 OBC-led companies. The scheme for SCs was started with a corpus of ₹750 crore and for OBCs, ₹180.92 crore.   

Further, the Committee also noted that there are “frequent changes in guidelines of various schemes like PM-AJAY, SHRESHTA, NAMASTE, PM-VISVAS, etc.”, adding that these guidelines should be “properly examined by seeking suggestions from all stakeholders before they are finalised”.