E-Paper
Scholarship fund crunch affecting students: Soren
Soren also urged the Prime Minister to enhance the Centre’s allocation for pre-matric and post-matric scholarships and resume scholarship assistance for students from minority communities.
Chief Minister Hemant Soren on Thursday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, alleging that a funding gap of more than ₹700 crore in central scholarship support over the last two financial years has adversely affected lakhs of students, and sought his intervention to resolve the issue.
Soren also urged the Prime Minister to enhance the Centre’s allocation for pre-matric and post-matric scholarships and resume scholarship assistance for students from minority communities.
In his letter, the chief minister claimed that while Jharkhand sought ₹370.87 crore for post-matric scholarships in 2025-26, the Centre released only ₹58.22 crore. “Similarly, against the state’s demand of ₹353.21 crore in 2024-25, the Centre sanctioned only ₹33.57 crore,” he added.
Soren alleged that the funding shortfall has delayed scholarship payments to lakhs of students, jeopardising their education. Highlighting the state’s financial constraints, he said that for the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment’s pre-matric scholarship scheme for Backward Class students in 2024-25, Jharkhand sought ₹66.14 crore but received only ₹12.61 crore from the Centre. For 2025-26, the state requested ₹45.91 crore, but only ₹3.95 crore was released.
Soren said Jharkhand has adopted a transparent, income-based scholarship eligibility system instead of relying on caste or community identity, in line with the principles of social justice.
He also questioned the Centre’s notional allocations, claiming the state received only ₹23.78 crore for 2024-25 and ₹32.70 crore for 2025-26, which were inadequate compared with its actual requirements. He urged the Prime Minister to enhance the allocations to ensure timely scholarship benefits for all eligible students.
Referring to scholarship schemes for Scheduled Tribe students under the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Soren claimed that no central funds have been released for either pre-matric or post-matric scholarships during 2025-26.
“The ₹200 crore released during 2024-25 was not fresh funding but comprised arrears for 2022-23 and the first instalment of the Centre’s 42 per cent share for 2023-24. As a result, the remaining 58 per cent share for 2023-24, along with the entire Central share for 2024-25 and 2025-26, is still pending,” he said.
Soren also highlighted disparities in scholarship rates, stating that Scheduled Tribe students receive only ₹3,000 per year, compared to ₹3,500 for Scheduled Castes and ₹4,000 for Backward Class students.
He urged the Centre to remove this disparity by increasing the scholarship amount for ST students. Drawing attention to minority welfare, Soren noted that minorities account for 23.29 per cent of Jharkhand’s population.
“The central scholarship assistance for minority students has not been released since 2021-22, adversely affecting educational opportunities,” he added, and requested the Government of India to revive the scheme immediately.
