NEW DELHI: The educational expenses of a daily labourer’s 17-year-old son, Amarjeet, who has secured admission to the National Institute of Technology (NIT), will be borne by the Delhi Housing Finance Corporation chairman Rajesh Goyal. Amarjeet cracked the entrance exam after availing free coaching under the Delhi government’s ‘Jai Bhim Mukhyamantri Pratibha Vikas Yojana’ scheme. Amarjeet and his parents, Sohan Lal and Kavita, live in the cramped quarters of Dharampur and could not afford to avail private coaching.
Amarjeet thus enrolled himself in the state government’s free coaching scheme launched in 2017. He was part of the first batch of students under the scheme and got coaching from Sachdeva New PT College. According to officials, Amarjeet, who aspires to join the Indian Administrative Services would have had to incur an expense of around Rs 1 lakh each year if he had taken private training.
Earlier, Delhi’s Social Welfare Minister Rajendra Pal Gautam had announced to fund the education of a daily wager’s daughter, Shashi, who secured admission to Lady Hardinge College after clearing the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test.Shashi’s father, 47-year-old Akhilesh Kumar Gaur, who studied till class 12, earns Rs 400 per day for plastering walls. Her mother never attended school.
CM Arvind Kejriwal had earlier announced that a resident of the national capital has decided to sponsor the education of Vijay Kumar who had secured a seat in IIT-Delhi after availing the government’s free coaching scheme.
The aim of the scheme is to provide free quality coaching for economically disadvantaged candidates for various competitive examinations. Earlier, only meritorious Dalit students were eligible for availing free coaching. The government recently extended the scheme to economically weaker candidates from other backward castes and the general category, too.
(With PTI inputs)