Students from the Muslim community received about 80 per cent of total scholarships offered under 20 Central government schemes in 2018-19, official data shows.
Those from the Christian community came in at second placewith 7.5 per cent share while it was 5 per cent for Sikhs and 4.7 per cent forHindus, according to the National Scholarship Portal managed by the Ministry ofElectronics and Information Technology.
More than 1.4 crore applications were received in 2018-19,of which 1.08 crore were verified.
Among the students who received scholarships, 88 lakh wereMuslims, 8.26 lakh Christians, 5.45 lakh Sikhs and 5.2 lakh Hindus.
There were 1.94 lakh (1.8 per cent) Buddhists and 1.07 lakh(1 per cent) Jains in the list of beneficiaries.
The total amount disbursed under these scholarshipprogrammes sponsored by 14 Union Ministries was Rs 2,157 crore in 2018-19.
Of the total amount, Rs 1,032 crore was spent on scholarshipsfor Muslims students while Rs 183 crore was spent for Sikhs and Rs 128 crorefor Hindus.
The Ministry of Minority Affairs topped the list ofallotments with 77 per cent scholarships of the total offered.
Ministry Of Labour and Employment, Department of HigherEducation, Department of School Education and Literacy, Department ofEmpowerment of Persons with Disabilities also featured among the top five.
West Bengal, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, andKerala were the top five states to receive scholarships.In terms of the amount received under thesescholarships, Uttar Pradesh came first with Rs 356 crore, followed by WestBengal at Rs 281 crore.