Highest In Six years, Nearly 4,500 Undergraduates Avail PM's Scholarship Scheme For J-K Students

Nearly 4,500 have enrolled themselves to pursue undergraduate studies under the Prime Minister’s Special Scholarship Scheme (PMSSS). Out of the total, 2,400 students are from the Jammu region, 1,474 from Kashmir and the rest from Ladakh. In last six years, this year saw the highest number of admissions as 2,400 students were admitted under the scheme in 2018 and nearly 3,000 in 2017. Maharashtra has the highest number of enrolled students, followed by Delhi, Punjab, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh.

According to the Indian Express report: “Of the approximately 4,500 students, the largest number (2,690) have taken admission in engineering programmes, followed by over 800 in general courses (BA and B.Sc degrees), 700 in nursing programmes and about 150 in pharmacy.”

Students have availed the admissions despite, tensions in Kashmir after New Delhi on August 5 announced abrogation of provisions of Article 370 and decided to bifurcate the state into Union territories - Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh - hours after Kashmir was placed under a total clampdown.

Every year fresh scholarships are given to Jammu and Kashmir students to pursue undergraduate studies outside the State for improving their skills.  The Scholarship covers Course fees and maintenance fees. Course Fee is paid directly to the Institute which includes tuition fees, university fee, exam fee, library fee, internet fee, etc.

Meanwhile, authorities are set to restore postpaid mobile services from today in Kashmir.  Valley has nearly 66 lakh mobile subscribers out of which nearly 40 lakh subscribers have post-paid facilities. "Mobile phone connections, to be specific, all postpaid mobile phone connections, irrespective of service provider, will resume from Monday - October 14th at noon. This will happen across the state, in all 10 districts of Kashmir," Jammu and Kashmir Principal Secretary Rohit Kansal said at a news briefing.

Partial fixed line telephony was resumed in the valley on August 17, and by September 4 all landlines, numbering nearly 50,000, were declared operational.

In Jammu, the communication system was restored within days of the blockade and even mobile Internet was started around mid-August. However, after its misuse, the Internet facility on cellular phones was snapped on August 18.