Centre may adopt scholarship database programme of UP

Last week,the UP unit of National Informatics Centre (NIC) — which developed this system three years ago — made a presentation before Sanjeev Kumar,Joint Secretary,Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment in Lucknow. Kumar was not available for comment.

Now the ministry has invited the NIC,UP and officials of the Social Welfare Department in Delhi to make a detailed presentation.

The system provides all information — name,roll number,father’s name,category,class and gender of the beneficiary. It also records the scholarship amount,name of the bank and its branch and the account number through which the student received the money.

District Magistrates outsource the job of computerising details of beneficiaries and banks to private firms. The NIC regularly updates the details of every student and banks on the website http://scholarship.up.nic.in.

“The Joint Secretary was very impressed. He was surprised to know that we are maintaining database of almost 3.9 crore beneficiaries online,” said S B Singh,state NIC director.

Singh said,“We have been invited to make presentation before Secretary of Ministry on Monday.”

The Ministry implements various programmes for social,educational and economical empowerment of Scheduled Castes,Other Backward Classes,persons with disabilities,senior citizens and victims of substance abuse.

“It is an achievement for the NIC’s UP Unit. Otherwise,Uttar Pradesh has been always known for corruption in welfare schemes,” said an official in Social Welfare Department.

Officials said a few days ago,the governments of Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh had also attended a presentation of the Scholarship Management System in Lucknow.