The Central government has distributed over 4 crore scholarships to students belonging to economically weaker sections of minority communities since 2014-15, Union Minister of Minority Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi told Rajya Sabha in a written reply on Monday (14 September).

Union Ministry of Minority Affairs implements various welfare schemes for the socio-economic and educational empowerment of six centrally notified minority communities namely Buddhists, Christians, Jains, Muslims, Parsis and Sikhs.

"Since 2014-15 to till date, a total number of 4,00,06,080 scholarships have been distributed to the students belonging to economically weaker sections of minority communities, by incurring a total expenditure of Rs 11,690.81 crore," the minister informed, according to an official release.

An amount of Rs 9223.68 crore has been spent for providing scholarships to 3,06,19,546 beneficiaries under various scholarship schemes of the Ministry during the period from 2015-16 to 2019-20, out of which about 54 per cent scholarships have been awarded to minority girl students, the release said.

During the period from 2015-16 to 2019-20, total fund allocated for Ministry of Minority Affairs was Rs 21160.84 crore and actual expenditure was Rs 19,201.45 crore which is approximately 90.75 per cent of total fund allocated, it said.