"30,000 students have registered on Vidyasaarathi for corporate scholarships"

Gagan Rai, Managing Director & CEO, NSDL e-Governance speaking to Careers360 details about ‘Vidyalakshmi’ & ‘Vidyasaarathi’ bridging the gap in education finance space...

Q. How NSDL is bridging the gap in the education finance sector?
A. NSDL has done various projects in the e-governance area and e-governance means that whatever services Government is supposed to provide to the citizens can be provided in transparent, efficient and economical manner. So we have been taking one after the other several projects like tax info network, the filing of e-tds returns, central record for national pension system and so on. One of the initiatives we have taken is Vidyasaarathi where the scholarship can be distributed to the eligible students.

We have created a portal where on one side we have corporates and on the other side, we will have thousands of students who will be applying for the scholarships. Now every corporate will have a right to decide the eligibility criteria on the basis of which these scholarships can be awarded to the students. Now as you know education finance is one area where there is a lot of demand and there is a lot of deficit of funds as the students do not know where to go either for the loan or for the scholarship and NSDL decided that we will bridge this gap.

So, corporates decide what is the criteria on the basis of which it will give a scholarship. For example, one corporate can decide that I will give a scholarship to only those who got admission in IIT or IIM Some corporates can say that I will give the scholarship to only those who have a family income of less than 3 lakh p.a. So it is on the corporate to decide because under CSR 2% of the profit of every corporate has to be spent on CSR activities. Now CSR has got several areas on where it can be spent, it can be education, it can be health, it can be Swachh Bharat, it can be sanitation and so on. One of the areas is education. So we have taken initiative in the education area.
A large number of corporates like TATA housing, LNJ Bhilwara Group, ACC, now all these big corporates have already joined Vidyasaarathi scheme.

Q. Tell me what is the number of scholarships these corporates are offering, any particular number?
A. Thousands of scholarships are being offered by the corporates, the number of students who have registered on the portal is about 30 thousand. Every corporate is giving scholarships in thousands because they have to spend a huge amount of money under CSR activity.

Q. Any particular amount that has been fixed for various categories of scholarships?
A. No, amount has not been fixed as I said earlier everything depends on the corporates but yes to give a figure it all ranges from few thousands to few lakhs depending on the course, depending on how much the corporates want to give and so on.

Q. Is it a one-time scholarship or till the student completes his education they will fund his education?
A. Both categories are there, it depends on the corporates because a number of corporates have joined so every corporate has a different scheme as I said so it is different for each corporate. For example, one corporate says that I will give only to the girl child. Some corporate can say I will give only to students who belong to Himachal Pradesh. The basic point is that the right to decide the criteria depends on the corporate which is giving the scholarship so they have the right to decide the criteria and the students have to see in which criteria they are fitting in and then apply accordingly. So first the student has to register on Vidyasaarathi website and then apply for the scholarship.

Q. Is there some registration fee for candidates who wish to register on Vidyasaarathi portal?
A. Students do not have to pay anything. It is totally free for them.

Q. This Scholarship is also available for students who want to go abroad and study?
A. As I said, it depends on the corporates. So, from our side, there is no restriction. You can give funding to students going abroad, in India, in Maharashtra, in Gujarat, anywhere they want to go to study. It depends on the corporates.

Q. Right now as you have corporates on board, are you also planning to bring government or government agencies as the government also have lots of scholarship programmes?
A. There are lots of PSUs who are giving scholarships under their CSR programme so we will be definitely approaching those PSUs and requesting them to come at our platform.

Q. Can you throw some light on what Vidya Lakshmi portal?
A. While Vidyasaarathi is a scholarship portal, Vidya Lakshmi is an education loan portal. Now, all the banks are giving educational loans, all of them can be contacted over Vidya Lakshmi portal. The student who wants to apply for a loan has to apply by filling up a simple application form and mention three banks of his choice to whom that application can be downloaded. So whichever bank offers the best terms and conditions of loan this can be accepted by the students and he can go to the branch and fill up the documents, etc. and take the education loan.

Q. Do I also need to visit branches of selected banks to fill the form?
A. No, You need not go to any bank branch till the bank calls you to fill up the loan documents. Around 40 banks have joined and they have been uploading the data of the students, about 4 lakhs 70 thousand student’s data exist on the Vidya Lakshmi loan portal.

Q. How have been the response of the banks about coming to this platform?
A. The response has been very good. And as you see it becomes easier for the banks also. Till the time loan documents have to be executed there is no paper involved and people can come and sit on the portal and fill in the form and download the form so no paperwork till the time documents has to be executed.

Q. How have been the response of the students and parents community. Because many of the parents are still living in rural and tribal areas?
A. They are very happy because whichever is the nearest bank or nearest branch they can mention that and they can download the application without visiting the branch and filling up the form.