The central government has decided to increase the corpus fund of Maulana Azad Education Foundation (MAEF) to Rs 700 crore. The MAEF is a society registered under Societies Registration Act, 1860 in 1989, has been provided with Corpus Fund of Rs.250 crores (till 2007-08) by the central government. The MAEF has helped the educationally backward minority communities by providing grant-in-aid to NGOs for construction of school, hostel building etc. and by granting scholarship to girl students belonging to minority communities. The funding of the above schemes is done from the interest income of the Corpus Fund, invested in banks. The MAEF has provided financial assistance in the form of grant of about Rs.117 crores to 893 NGOs and scholarships of about Rs.30 crores to 26,000 minority girl students since 1989.
Out of this, the Foundation has given grant of Rs.17 crores to 124 NGOs and scholarships of over Rs.14 crores to 12064 girl students belonging to minorities in the current financial year 2008-09 (up to January 2009), says a central government communication. In view of increasing demand of funds from NGOs working on education development of minorities, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) in its meeting on February 26 approved additional Corpus Fund of Rs.500 crores to be released during the 11th Five Year Plan.