Bijnor: Only 30% eligible candidates have applied for the minority student scholarship scheme this year in Bijnor , compared to 100% last year. The reason behind the decline is the limited number of scholarship seats available. Most of the students from the minority community who had applied for the central government’s scheme last year had been rejected and as a result, they didn’t bother this year.Praveen Mishra from the district minority welfare department confirmed that they had met only 30% of their target in getting minority students to apply for the scheme. “We are facing a lot of problems in fulfilling the target. We have asked the management of minority schools, colleges and institutes to motivate their students to apply for the scheme.”Under the scholarship scheme, minority students till class 10 can avail a scholarship up to Rs 4,000, those studying in class 11 and class 12 can avail one up to Rs 7,000, while students who go for higher studies can avail a scholarship up to Rs 50,000.However, the scheme has a stipulated target and not every student applying for a scholarship gets it. There are over 70,000 students from the minority community studying in Bijnor. Last year, most of them had applied for the scheme and many had been rejected. As it takes a certain amount of money to put together the required documents for a scholarship, most students decided to stay away this year.Mishra added, “The target is the same as it was last year. But this time around, only a handful of students have applied.”Talking to TOI, Mohammad Iftakar, a student and a resident of Kiratpur, said, “I am pursuing a technical course from an institute. I had applied to avail a scholarship but was unable to. The number of applicants had already crossed the target. Therefore, this time, I did not bother to do it.”

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