K'taka launches integrated State Scholarship Portal for students

Bengaluru: Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy on Wednesday launched a new portal that will remove the hurdles that students face in accessing scholarships in time. The State Scholarship Portal will now be the single platform for disbursal of student scholarships.

The newly developed State Scholarship Portal (SSP) that will replace the old Scholarship Management Information System (SIMS), will ensure that over 3 lakh students in schools and colleges across the state get their state funding directly in their bank account.

The SSP will cut out bureaucratic delays and hassles, with the aid of Aadhaar. For those students who do not have Aadhaar, the portal will offer other alternate and viable means of identification for delivery, in line with Section 3 of the Karnataka Aadhaar Act, 2018.

Speaking on the occasion, the chief minister said, "We in Karnataka realise that the education system needs to be upgraded to meet the challenges of today, and to deliver better quality education to students. As befits the most technologically advanced state, our government has created the new State Scholarship Portal. I am confident this will ensure no deserving student or beneficiary is left behind."

Kumaraswamy also said the new portal will cover all welfare departments - namely Social Welfare, Tribal Welfare, Backward Classes Welfare, Minority Welfare, as well as the Education department. Scholarships will be disbursed through implementation of DBT (Direct Benefit Transfer), as per the Government of India norms.