New Delhi, July 25
The Centre has reserved two seats in the general and engineering streams of all government-recognised colleges for students hailing from Jammu and Kashmir.

Any student who holds a domicile of the state can seek admission against a quota of two supernumerary seats that the Centre has created from this academic session in all colleges and institutes recognised by the UGC and the All India Council for Technical Education. Admissions would be granted on the basis of merit.

“These seats are supernumerary, which means they have been created over and above the existing college intake to ensure students from J&K benefit, but others are not disadvantaged,” HRD Ministry sources said. No such quota will be available in medical colleges.

In a parallel move, the Inter Ministerial Council implementing the ongoing PM’s Special Scholarship Scheme for J&K students has finalised new rules to ensure smooth functioning of the scheme, which is open to students who complete Class XII from the Valley and want admission to colleges outside the state. The scheme covers only regular UG courses and not PG and diploma courses.

From this session, a maximum of five students will get the scholarship in any given college under the scheme, which offers 5,000 scholarships in general, engineering and medical streams. The idea is to avoid clustering of students in a single college and ensure their spread across India.

New rules (scheme envisages renewal of scholarship to an awardee till five years from its inception in 2011) also state that a student who fails to pass a year would be given the scholarship in the next year on the condition that if he or she fails again, the scholarship would be forfeited.

On limiting the admissions per college under the scheme, Secretary, HRD Ministry, Ashok Thakur said, “Maximum of five students will get the scholarship in a college under the scheme based on their Class XII merit. The idea is to avoid several of them from concentrating in one college which has been happening. The scheme seeks to integrate J&K students with India and we have to encourage their even spread.”

The Centre is also open to increasing the number of scholarships under the scheme from beyond 5,000. The increase has become necessary after the Centre’s recent decision to relax annual family income ceiling of aspirants from Rs 4.5 lakh to Rs 6 lakh. J&K delegates led by MP GN Ratanpuri have petitioned the PM seeking 10,000 scholarships annually as against 5,000 and demanded that the scheme be expanded to cover PG courses. On supernumerary seats, Ratanpuri said, “This is a landmark step considering all students from J&K can compete for these seats in general and technical streams in any UGC or AICTE approved institute.”