New Delhi: An ambitious scholarship programme of the Human Resource Development Ministry to enable students pursue higher education is awaiting clearance from the Planing Commission.

Under the programme, two lakh students would get the scholarships as against 17,000 scholarships given at present and they would get Rs 1,000 at the graduate level and Rs 2,000 at the post-graduate level, sources said.

The students would be selected at the Board examination level cutting across all the boards in the country, the sources said. The government would not like to "dilute" the standards of the Boards and every Board would get importance in the selection of students, they said.

Of the two per cent scholarships out of a one crore students in the higher education, boys and girls would get one per cent each under the programme which is likely to cost the exchequer around Rs 2,000 crore during the Eleventh Plan.

The scholarship programme is likely to be taken up at the full Planning Commission meeting likely to be held on Monday.

In his Independence Day speech, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had said that the government would provide more scholarships to every needy boy and girl to pursue higher studies. "We should seek not just functional literacy but good quality education, education that is affordable, accessible, equitable, and available to every boy and girl who seeks to study. For the needy, we will provide more scholarships", the Prime Minister had said.