Bhubaneswar: The state government on Tuesday said caste certificates to 19 lakh eligible students would be made available in six months.

The directive came after allegations that the students were facing hardships in securing SC, ST as well as socially and educationally backward classes (SEBC) certificates.

The decision was taken at a meeting of officials which was attended by SC, ST and backward classes welfare minister Ramesh Chandra Majhi and chief secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi. Over 19.34 lakh SC, ST and SEBC students studying from Class V to XII will be issued the certificates.

Earlier, chief minister Naveen Patnaik had announced that one-time caste certificate would be given to students. The certificates are required by students for different purposes.

Following the chief minister's announcement, the SC, ST and OBC department had issued circulars to all district collectors and concerned officials at the grassroots level.

But as the desired progress could not be achieved in this regard, the government on Tuesday called a conference of all the additional district magistrates, district education officers, district welfare officers and other officials at the state secretariat.

The chief secretary said: "The existing rules will be amended to ensure life-time use of the caste certificates, and a special drive will be launched in the campaign mode to issue the certificates."

Majhi said his department issued a circular to all concerned on April 21. "We will gear up the district officials to clear the backlog by March 31," he said.

Official sources said there were 91 categories of scheduled castes, 62 tribal communities and 209 socially and educationally backward castes in the state.

After receipt of the application, document verification will be done at the revenue inspector and tehsil level, then it will be sent to the common service centres for preparation of the certificates.

Finally, the certificates will be issued by respective schools.