Bhubaneswar, April 19: The state government has decided to hike the scholarship for its scheduled caste and scheduled tribe students taking admissions in engineering and medical courses. This move will be implemented from the next academic session.

Secretary, ST and SC development department, Santosh Sarangi said aspiring medics from reserved categories, who take admission in private institutions, will now be entitled to Rs 4.25 lakh per annum instead of Rs 16,000. The annual grant for those getting into government-run medical colleges remains unchanged at Rs 16,000.

Similarly, for engineering courses, the limit of annual scholarship has been fixed at Rs 50,000.

However, the annual income of the candidate’s parents must be less than Rs 2.5 lakh per annum. An income certificate issued by the local tehsildar is a must for the student to avail of the scheme.

Sarangi said the revision had been made keeping in view the rising cost of higher studies. “Since private medical colleges charge more fee, we realised that the students were not being reimbursed substantially. Hence, we decided to increase the amount,” he said. A committee consisting of officials of three departments — ST and SC development, technical education and health — has taken this decision.

Technical education secretary Chandra Shekhar Kumar said the government was constantly striving to include more students belonging to reserved categories under various scholarship schemes. “Meritorious students from remote and backward areas are qualifying for professional courses. We want to facilitate their education by giving them financial assistance,” said Kumar.

Tech aspirants will be shortlisted for the scholarship according to their performance in the Odisha Joint Entrance Examination (OJEE)-2013 to be held on May 12. On the other hand, candidates from the state wishing to pursue MBBS will be judged on the basis of National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test, the over-arching pre-medical exams, scheduled for May 18.

In 2011, the state government had introduced a tuition fee waiver scheme for OJEE rank holders from the state, who took admissions into BTech and BPharma streams and whose parents’ annual income was less than Rs 2.5 lakh.

This was done in compliance with the All-India Council for Technical Education guidelines to its affiliate technical colleges to reserve at least five per cent of the seats for the financially weak students.