New Delhi, Aug. 31: The Centre has decided to bear all expenses of poor students from minority communities who get into top higher education institutions on merit.

Fifty such institutions, including all IITs and IIMs, have been identified by the minority affairs ministry, sources said.

Minority affairs minister A.R. Antulay today tabled a statement on the follow-up action on the Sachar committee’s recommendations.

It mentions three scholarship schemes as part of the government’s multi-pronged strategy to address educational backwardness, particularly among Muslim youths.

These include a merit-cum-means scholarship scheme for 20,000 students pursuing technical and professional courses, which has already been approved. Two new scholarships — one each for pre-matric and post-matric students — will be introduced “shortly”, the statement says.

It lists several other steps for educational, social and economic welfare of minorities that the government has announced from time to time after the Sachar committee submitted its report in 2006.

The sources said the proposed benefits, however, would not be available to students whose parents’ annual income is over Rs 2 lakh.

Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists and Parsis are the five religious minority communities, according to the national minorities commission act.