Private colleges in Gujarat offering a variety of technical and professional courses, which have admitted many students in their vacant quotas—seats have ended up in limbo after the Tribal Development Department issued a resolution stating that students admitted under the management quota from the current academic year onward will not be eligible for scholarships.
Notably, private institutes, including diploma and degree engineering, pharmacy, and nursing, remained unoccupied after the Centralised Online Admission Process was revised.
These vacant seats, however, were filled through the management quota.
The department has now implemented a new provision of the central government’s Post-Matric Scholarship Scheme for Scheduled Tribes (ST) students.
This scholarship is awarded to ST students pursuing a diploma in engineering, degree in engineering, degree in pharmacy, diploma in pharmacy, MBA (Master of Business Administration), MCA (Master of Computer Application), ME (Master of Engineering), MPharm (Master of Pharmacy), nursing, and other paramedical courses, as well as all other vocational courses.
Under this scheme, the central government provides 75% of the grant and the state government 25%.
According to the new provision introduced by the central government, students admitted under the management quota are no longer eligible for scholarships.
In most cases, private colleges offering technical and professional courses in the state admit students to fill their vacant quotas under the management quota.
In many colleges, there have been cases where the number of seats filled under the management quota has exceeded those filled through the centralised admission process.
Private technical colleges admit thousands of ST students to their management quota seats and these admissions are considered part of the vacant quota admission process.
The department stated that under the revised admission process, students admitted to the state quota seats (government quota) of private colleges should be considered first.
It adds that these seats be transferred to the management quota only when any vacant seats remain in the government quota.
Questions have also been raised about the state government’s decision to implement this scheme two years after the central government amended its provisions.