The Ministry of Minority Affairs (MOMA) provides financial aid to minority students under three major scholarships schemes--pre-matric, post-matric and merit-cum-means. Under these, around 7 million scholarships can be disbursed to poor students from six notified minority communities--Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and Parsis For the academic year 2018-19, the ministry received 7.3 million fresh applications and 3.5 million applications for renewal of pre-matric scholarships. Of these, scholarship has been disbursed to 2.9 million fresh applicants (40%) and 2.7 million applications for renewal (77%). In the case of post-matric scholarships, fresh and renewal combined, the number of minority applicants was 2 million, but only 680,000 (34%) received the money. Under the merit cum means scholarship, provided for professional and technical courses, the ministry has approved scholarships to 120,000 students in 2018-19, which is only 36% of the total applications. This is the stark contrast to Dr Ambedkar’s fundamental educational thought when he said that, “Education is something which ought to be brought within the reach of everyone.”