"The University will allocate Rs.1 crore for distribution via scholarship in the first year to deserving students from rural areas in the state," said Rajneesh Arora, Vice-Chancellor, PTU.

Students who have completed their class X or XII from rural areas will be considered as rural students under the scheme. An advisory committee has been constituted which would be responsible for suggesting ways and means to increase the number of rural students in professional institutions.

The committee would comprise of renowned educationists, scholars and media personalities and their first meeting will be held in the first week of April.

Under its motto "go rural go global" for the next academic session, PTU is in the process of creating awareness programme to its affiliated institutes regarding the number of seats available with them, especially the 5pc seats that were already allotted for rural students in the state.

Dr. Arora said an additional 10pc seats had been allocated for poor but meritorious students, whether they belong to rural or urban areas.

The rural seats in professional institutes usually remain vacant because very few rural students take up the non-medical stream in class XII and as per the recent figures given by the Punjab State Education Board (PSEB), only 22,000 students clear the class XII examinations in commerce, non-medical and medical streams.

This results in very less scope for admissions in professional courses and there is a need to address the issue at the State Education Board level, added Dr. Arora.

Source : indiaedunews