Integrated scholarship portal for students launched

Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy on Wednesday launched the State Scholarship Portal (SSP), a platform for disbursal of student scholarships.

The newly developed SSP, which will replace the old Scholarship Management Information System (SIMS), will ensure that over three lakh students in schools and colleges get their state funding directly in their bank accounts.

The SSP is said to cut down bureaucratic delays and hassles, as the Aadhaar numbers of the students are linked to the bank accounts.

For those students who do not have Aadhaar, the portal will offer alternative means of identification for delivery, in line with Section 3 of the Karnataka Aadhaar Act, 2018.

Kumaraswamy said that the portal would remove the hurdles that students face in accessing scholarships in time. It will now be the single platform for disbursal of student scholarships.

The chief minister said the portal would cover all welfare departments - Social Welfare, Tribal Welfare, Backward Classes Welfare, Minority Welfare, as well as the Education department. Scholarships will be disbursed through DBT (Direct Benefit Transfer), as per Central government norms.

The first scholarship to be disbursed will be the pre-matric scholarship.