Rs6.5 bn approved for Ehsaas scholarships

Islamabad: The steering committee for Ehsaas Undergraduate Scholarship approved a budget of Rs6.53 billion for 67,000 need and merit based undergraduate scholarships nationwide.

The approval was made at a meeting held on Monday with SAPM Dr. Sania Nishtar in chair. Members of the committee discussed that 111,685 undergraduate students (42,430 applications of girls) have applied for scholarships through online application portal which publicly closed for applications on Nov 30, 2020. The meeting also reviewed the field execution of the programme with 125 public sector universities.

Dr. Sania emphasized the need to expedite the process for scholarship distribution and disbursements for the academic year 2020-21. The scrutiny of new applications is currently underway and final selection process will be completed by April 2021. She also urged BISP and Higher Education Commission (HEC) to execute timely communications campaign and funds disbursal in this phase. The committee was informed that HEC will re-open the portal for 15 days in the second week of March 2021 to facilitate students from medical universities in the public sector. “Fifty per cent of scholarship awardees should be girls and 2% differently abled.”