Vidyanjali Programme: Education ministry seeks donations for higher education infrastructure

NEW DELHI: The ministry of education is seeking "philanthropic contributions" for constructing infrastructure in higher education institutions (HEIs). The contributions will go to the institution via the Vidyanjali Foundation, set up as a not-for-profit subsidiary of Education Consultants for lndia Limited (EdClL), a public sector company. The Vidyanjali Programme started as a school volunteer programme.

The aim of the Vidyanjali programme is to collect contributions from non-governmental organisations and private sources such as “CSR grants, national and international donors and impact investors”, says a notice from the education ministry which also stresses that such contributions will lead to the inclusion of “private sector vigour” and affect the speed and scale of the outcome of envisioned plans of Vidyanjali.

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To maintain transparency regarding the contributions and other data, the official notice claims, a fintech platform has been launched under the Vidyanjali programme that will perform the following duties: “capturing data, receiving, hosting and viewing institution's applications, grant disbursement, tracking physical and financial progress and publicly acknowledging the support of the funders”.

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The request for philanthropic contributions is part of the Vidyanjali programme which was initiated by the Government of India in September 2021. The Vidyanjali programme was specifically started for building infrastructure in government HIEs. As per the official notification, the programme aims to achieve the goals set in the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.

Earlier, in November 2021, the union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan had requested citizens to contribute to the Vidyanjali programme during diwali.