Online monitoring of all student welfare schemes soon

CHENNAI: All welfare schemes for students, including the 7.5 per cent horizontal reservation for government school students in Tamil Nadu engineering colleges, will be monitored online to curb irregularities. A project monitoring unit to be established by the Higher Education Department would handle the task under the supervision of the Directorate of Technical Education (DoTE).

A senior official from the Higher Education Department told DT Next that, at present, there is no project monitoring system for the students who benefit through various welfare schemes. Stating that there were more than 10 welfare schemes for engineering and polytechnic students, he said, “It was also reported that there were delays in reaching benefits to the students.”

Explaining about the project monitoring unit, he said a committee comprising high-level authorities in Higher Education Department will be constituted to inspect all the welfare schemes.

“Accordingly, the new software application would integrate all the schemes,” he said adding “the system would ensure that the benefits reach the right person without any delay.”

The official said apart from the software application, a mobile app will also be developed as a part of project monitoring activities. “The online access given to the officials concerned could generate reports at any time to know the status of the scheme,” he said adding “the report will show all the details including from scheme enrollment till beneficiary level.”

Stating that special attention will be given to monitoring 7.5 reservation of seats on a preferential basis to government school students in engineering colleges, he said: “the new monitoring system would curb delay in paying tuition, hostel and transportation fees, which would be borne by the government for these students under the quota.”

He said in addition, the new system will also check the allocation of funds by the government for the schemes and generate reports in this regard. “The monitoring unit will monitor funds movement of the post-matric scholarship scheme for SC/ST students, postgraduate assistantship scheme and first-generation graduation tuition fee concession,” he added.