Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) has re-introduced fee reimbursement policy for SC/ ST students. Earlier, IGNOU offered a fee waiver for SC/ ST students for admission in various courses. However, the fee waiver scheme of IGNOU had negative effects, as the varsity ran out of its allocated funds. IGNOU is facing a severe fund crunch and asked HRD Ministry to allocated Rs. 32.8 crore to mitigate the fund crunch.
In order to mitigate the fund crunch, IGNOU has scrapped the fee waiver scheme for SC/ ST students. Instead, these students will be provided reimbursement, as confirmed by the officials of IGNOU.
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IGNOU will soon develop an online portal or website for implementing fee reimbursement for SC/ ST under Tribal Sub-Plan and Scheduled Caste Sub-Plan. Through this website, SC/ST students enrolled in IGNOU can submit their claims for reimbursement. The fee shall be disbursed to the candidates’ bank accounts directly under DBT (Direct Benefit Transfer) scheme.
As the official portal to implement reimbursement for reserved category students is not yet ready, students must claim their reimbursement in offline mode. For this purpose, the students must visit the respective study centre to submit the application form for reimbursement. At the same time, students must specify his/ her bank account details in the application form. February 19, 2019, is the last date to submit the application form for claiming reimbursement.
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IGNOU has no other option except to go ahead with reimbursement policy, as the expenditure of IGNOU exceeded its budget last year due to the fee waiver scheme for SC/ ST students.
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