Kendrapara: Meet 71-year-old NRI Debendra Das, a resident of Badahat. He settled in the US with his family but visits the state every year. His annual pilgrimage to his home state and district has one mission: To provide scholarships to talented students of the district and help poor students go for higher studies.
According to Prof Debendra Das, who has been working as the Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Alaska, he belonged to a lower middle class family. But, most of his family members were well educated and established themselves in their own fields. Their success had inspired him to do well in his studies and go for higher education.
Das was a meritorious student in school and college. He passed Class XI from Baladevjew High School in first division in 1964 and studied at Ravenshaw College. Later, he went for engineering studies at Regional Engineering College (REC), Rourkela. He graduated in Mechanical Engineering from REC in 1972 with a gold medal which paved the road to the US for higher studies. Brown University gave him cent per cent scholarship to pursue master’s degree. Later, he obtained Doctorate.
Prof Das said, “I settled in the USA and married Katherine Cross (Das) and became the father of a son. As I know, there are several meritorious poverty stricken students, who fail to go for higher studies, due to lack of encouragement and financial constraints. So, I decided to help the meritorious and poor students to go for higher studies in my native district as well as in the state. For the last 12 years, I have been giving scholarships to meritorious school and college students in this town as well as in rural pockets of the district. I have been providing a sum of Rs 1,000 as a token of recognition to meritorious students to boost their morale. Today, I gave scholarships to about 20 meritorious students of Kendrapara Government Boys’ High School.”
Apart from this, he has been providing financial aid to meritorious, who are unable to pursue higher studies through Shree Banchhanidhi Das and Srimati Devi Charitable Trust. This programme has benefited more than a hundred poor students.
Das is also spearheading the 1972 Alumni Endowed Scholarship schemes. He also raised Rs 42 lakh, of which he donated Rs 2.5 lakh. The money is invested and the revenue generated from it will be used to fund scholarships. Seven meritorious and poor students in NIT Rourkela have been getting Rs 40,000 each for their studies.
Prof Das also contributed Rs 7 lakh to the Professor Ajay Mohanty Endowed Chair Professorship at NIT, Rourkela, and also raised Rs 1.20 crore with other alumni of REC Rourkela, for the charitable trust that was created in memory of late professor Ajay Mohanty, who was a resident of Chandol and a professor of NIT Rourkela.
Das is set to constitute another endowed charitable trust with the help of NIT Rourkela Alumni Association in the US. It plans to collect Rs 2 crore for the trust to help 20 meritorious students of NIT Rourkela. Once in place, each student would be given Rs 80,000 per annum.
“If they (students) have talent, then poverty would not stand as barrier for their studies as long as I am alive,” said the NRI. PNN
