Students cancel admissions in foreign universities last minute due to delays in scholarship selection by Sarathi

Sakshi had applied for the Sayajirao Gaekwad Sarathi scholarship this year, which is yet to declare a list of selected candidates, even as the courses have already started. The Maharashtra government had approved the Sayajirao Gaekwad Sarathi scholarship for meritorious students coming from Maratha community to pursue higher studies abroad.

The scholarship, approved in July 2023, is for students from Maratha and Kunbi categories from Maharashtra, through Sarthi—a non-profit government company for Marathas. The scholarship is given to pursue masters degree, postgraduate diploma (PG diploma), as well as PhD. In the first year, 75 students were expected to benefit from the scholarship. However, a government resolution (GR) declared names of 21 selected candidates, for all courses combined.

“Last year, Sarathi received only 83 applications. This year, the number of applications is around 150 and the seats are 75. The application has still not been verified by the Sarathi organisation. Directors have not yet had time to look into this plan. Once this process is completed, the applications go to the selection committee in the Ministry and then the list is prepared, which usually takes a month. If the code of conduct comes in next week, it looks like this year’s process won’t happen. Students will be affected by the administrative delay,” said Kuldeep Ambekar from Student Helping Hands.

“Scholarships, such as Chevening and Commonwealth, start their applications a year in advance, which helps as you can be sure you have a scholarship before moving abroad. But this was started only in the last week of July, which causes constant anxiety due to last minute procedure,” said Sakshi.

She got her conditional offer letter in December 2023 and unconditional in January 2024, while the Sarathi scholarship online application and submission of attested documents happened in the last week of July. She had to pay a deposit to confirm her admission by the last week of August, but as the list was not out yet, she decided to take a loan.

Other students like her, who requested not to be named, decided to cancel their admission as there was no confirmation of their scholarship status.

Sakshi also said even if the process starts late, that is not the only issue, it is also tedious. “I had submitted all the documents during the first round and was called to physically submit self-attested documents in the Pune office. They just collected my file but didn’t immediately check my documents. When it was time for me to leave for Europe, they called at the eleventh hour, requesting for one more document,” she said.

Ashok Kolhe, who handles the study abroad scholarships for Sarath,i said “There is no one specific reason for the delay. We had given extension on application date and received more applications this year. So we took more time to process. But this is a reimbursement scheme. The students are supposed to go and pay for everything on their own, send us receipts based on which we reimburse the amount. I agree that the students should not be kept hanging about whether they are selected for the scholarship or not even after admissions. It is obvious they should know before they leave that they have been selected. But right now, on our end, we are trying to finish the process in two or three days and send it ahead for processing.”