In a novel initiative, the district administration here would select fifty students of Class X from the Government schools and send them to top Medical and Engineering coaching institutes of Kota.
These students would be provided free coaching, boarding and lodging facilities for two years at Kota in Rajasthan, which is the coaching hub of the country. The administration has already tied up with two top coaching institutes AllEN and Career Point located at Kota. AllEN has expertise in coaching for Medical Entrance while the Career Point is famous for Engineering and IIT entrances.
The District Magistrate B V R C Purushottam informed the media about the scheme at the sidelines of a screening test held at Rajiv Gandhi Navodaya Vidyalaya here on Wednesday. He said that the scheme is titled “Project UDAN” as it aims to provide a launching platform for the bright underprivileged students, the funds for this scheme would be arranged from the sponsors.
Giving details of the project Purushottam said that 152 Government secondary schools of the six blocks of the district were asked to send two students each, out the 304 enrolled students 294 appeared for a screening test. The DM said that for the backward blocks of Chakrata and Kalsi the minimum passing marks in the screening test have been kept at 40% while for others the minimum marks would be 50%.
Under “Project UDAN” the administration plans to send fifty students to Kota, the estimated cost per student for the two year course would be Rupees 3 lakhs which would be provided by the sponsors, the administration has already found ten sponsors for this project. The students are enthused by the prospects of studying in Kota free of cost.
It is interesting to note that the schools sent large number of girls for the screening test. lalita Jadodiya a student of class X of Government Girls Inter College (GGIC) Rajpur, told The Pioneer that her father is a vegetable vendor and is not in a position to pay the hefty fees of the coaching institutes. “If I am selected under the project, I would work very hard to fulfill the dreams of my family,” the bright eyed girl said.