Jajpur: Around 95 per cent of students pursuing Plus-III and Post Graduation courses in Odisha will receive ‘Nua-O’ scholarship, Chairman of 5T and Nabin Odisha Kartik Pandian announced Tuesday during ‘Nua-O’ event in Jajpur district.
Pandian informed that the decision was taken by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik yesterday. Male students will receive a scholarship amount of Rs 9,000 annually while female students will get Rs 10,000 every year till the completion of their respective courses. Male students belonging to SC/ST and Nirman Shramik (construction worker) families will get Rs 10,000, while female students of the categories will receive Rs 11,000 annually.
Furthermore, Pandian stated that this year, the scholarship money will be credited to the students’ bank accounts between February 20 and 25.
The Nutana Unnata Abhilasha (NUA) Odisha scheme aims to empower youth with continuous skilling, re-skilling, and up-skilling opportunities, he said.
“The Chief Minister has sanctioned around Rs300 crore as a corpus fund for ‘Nua-O’ programme. Over 4.5 lakh students studying in undergraduate courses and nearly 35,000 students enrolled in post-graduation courses will benefit from this scholarship”, Pandian said.
“By August, Nua-O magic smart cards will be given to all eligible students, through which they would be able to avail additional benefits such as bus or train travel, access free WiFi, online courses, skill development and coaching programmes,” Pandian added.
“In subsequent years, students can get more money annually as compared to the base amount based on their participation in AI classes, community service, social service and so on. Students will be credited points for their participation in various extra-curricular activities which will help to increase their yearly scholarship amount”, Nabin Odisha Chairman added.
Students whose parents pay income tax or have permanent government jobs will be excluded from the scholarship programme, he informed.
PNN & Agencies
