Punjab Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Dr Raj Kumar Verka on Friday said that under the post-matric scholarship scheme (SC), over 1.50 lakh students have been issued Freeship Cards till date and the portal will be kept open for further application under this scheme.

Dr Verka said that under the post matric scholarship scheme for SC, a Freeship Card scheme has been introduced to ease the difficulties of students in admission in different institutions.

After obtaining the cards under this scheme, the students become eligible for admission in any educational institution under post matric scholarship. Earlier, students belonging to the SC community faced various difficulties in getting admission under the Post-Matric Scholarship scheme. With this unique scheme, the difficulties faced by the students have been largely resolved, he added. Meanwhile, on the Ministers instructions, the Department of Social Justice opened the Ambedkar Scholarship Portal for receiving the applications for post-matric scholarships 2021-22. The educational institutions have been directed to forward complete cases of eligible SC and BC students by November 30.

The approving authority will send the proposal to the sanctioning authority on the Ambedkar Scholarship Portal by December 10. Last date for the sanctioning authority to forward the cases to the welfare department has been fixed on December 15, 2021.