Hyderabad: With a view to encouraging students from poorer sections in clearing the UPSC Civil Services exams, the Telangana government would extend a scholarship of Rs 10,000 per month to those who have cleared their Preliminary exam.
The scholarship will help such aspirants prepare for the Mains examination and Interview.
The scheme will be applicable to those with an annual family income of less than Rs 6 lakh.
States such as Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra are already having such schemes. Coaching fee ranges between Rs 75,000 and Rs 3 lakh. This year, 4.65 lakh students took the CS Prelims.
Of them, about 20,000 were from Telangana and 18,000 from Andhra Pradesh. Of these, only 450 have qualified -- 250 from TS and 200 from AP.
An analysis by Backward Classes Welfare Department showed that the percentage of qualifiers from poorer sections was less than 10 per cent, and this has been falling sharply at the Mains stage and Interview to just about 2 per cent.
This is because the students could not afford coaching. “The modalities will be finalised soon," said Jogu Ramanna, minister for BC welfare.
