Mamata: Yogyashree scheme to include OBC, General & Minority students

Kolkata: On Tuesday, Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced that the Yogyashree scheme would include OBC and general category students, as well as minority boys and girls. This initiative will provide them with free training for admission into medical and engineering courses, as well as for various competitive examinations.

The primary goal of this initiative is to empower individuals from economically disadvantaged backgrounds to realise their aspirations of becoming doctors and engineers and to excel in competitive examinations.

In a post on X, Chief Minister Banerjee said: “We are proud that our Yogyashree scheme which we started to provide completely free-of-cost training to SC/ST students of the state for admission in engineering and medical courses has been yielding increasingly greater and greater benefits for our SC/ST boys & girls. Now we shall include the boys and girls of Minority, OBC and General categories also in this scheme.”

Earlier this year, the Bengal government launched an extensive social welfare initiative named Yogyashree. This scheme is designed to offer free training programmes to Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) students in Bengal, with a

particular focus on preparing them for entrance and competitive examinations.

This move came ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, reflecting the state government’s commitment to educational empowerment. Banerjee also stated that in 2024, Yogyashree trainees got 23 ranks (including 13 IIT seats) in JEE (Advanced), 75 ranks in JEE( Main), 432 ranks in WBJEE, and 110 ranks in NEET.

“These achievements in these tough competitive examinations are better than even the earlier years’ results,” Banerjee said. Several centres across the state, since inception, have been offering cost-free training for SC and ST students, focusing on competitive examinations under the scheme.

These centres provide similar opportunities for those aspiring to secure government jobs and pursue careers in civil services.

Taking to X, Banerjee also said: “In consideration of the value of this critical training support to our disadvantaged boys and girls, we have increased the number of centres in the State now to 50 and number of our supported trainees to 2000 and the training will be given from Class XI onwards for better preparation.”

She further wrote: “Let our boys and girls from the weaker sections be engineers and doctors in larger numbers. We shall now include students of Minority, OBC, and General categories also in this scheme. Kudos to them!”