Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala government on Friday said it has allocated an additional Rs 200 crore for post-matric scholarships for students belonging to the Other Eligible Communities (OEC) category.

With this, the government has allocated Rs 5,326 crore so far this year towards scholarships for Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST), Other Backward Classes (OBC) and OEC categories, according to a statement from the office of state Finance Minister K N Balagopal.

Balagopal said the additional Rs 200 crore has been made available for the distribution of scholarships to students belonging to OEC and Socially and Educationally Backward Classes (SEBC) categories.

This year, Rs 240 crore was allocated in the budget, and now Rs 200 crore has been sanctioned as an additional allocation, the statement said.

With this, arrears under this category can be cleared in full, it added.

Last year, Rs 40 crore was allocated in the budget for these scholarships, but the government ended up distributing around Rs 358 crore, which included arrears from previous years.

The statement further said that while the first Pinarayi Vijayan government distributed Rs 3,853 crore in scholarships for students from marginalised communities, the previous Oommen Chandy government had spent Rs 2,069 crore.