Despite financial hardship and bureaucratic hurdles, Priya Tadam, a young tribal woman from a remote village in Maharashtra’s Chandrapur district, has secured admission to the University of Bristol in the UK for a one-year master’s programme in Commercial Law, with full funding under a state scholarship scheme.
Born in Bharapur, a hamlet of just 40 tribal families, Priya grew up in a place where education remained a distant prospect. “Getting an education was never easy, but I was fortunate to have the unwavering support of my parents, particularly my father. He is a smallholder tribal farmer. Our family primarily cultivates paddy, while during the remaining months, my father works on the farms of larger landowners,” she said. With no school in her village, Priya walked three to four kilometres every day to attend primary school. Her access to books, she said, helped her look beyond limitations.
“Books taught me that life was beautiful and full of possibilities,” she said. After graduation, she pursued an LLB at Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar College in Nagpur.
But the prospect of studying overseas brought its own challenges. “Dreaming big is one thing, but turning those dreams into reality is another. The distance between the two is enormous, and the journey is often filled with difficulties and obstacles,” she said.
Priya began researching universities abroad and seeking guidance. The cost of tuition, travel and accommodation, however, appeared beyond her family’s means. “My enthusiasm was dampened when I realised how expensive studying abroad could be,” she recalled.
A breakthrough came when a senior friend told her about the Maharashtra government’s overseas scholarship scheme for Scheduled Tribe students, which provides financial assistance to eligible students pursuing higher education abroad. “I collected all the necessary information about the scholarship and decided to apply,” she said.
Priya initially secured admission to Queen Mary University of London and applied for the scholarship. But the admission offer came with a three-month deadline to complete the enrolment formalities, while her scholarship application remained caught in administrative delays.
“I had to travel between government offices in my district and Mantralaya in Mumbai. The delays became a major obstacle. The university kept sending emails asking me to complete the formalities, warning that my admission could be cancelled. Despite granting me three extensions, the university’s final deadline was approaching. I was left with barely a week to complete the enrolment process,” she said.
As the deadline neared, her father took her to Mumbai, where they met their area’s MLA, Vijay Wadettiwar. On the day of a Cabinet meeting, he accompanied them to Mantralaya, where the Chief Minister, Deputy Chief Ministers and the minister concerned assured them that her scholarship file, pending for nearly six months, would be cleared that day.
Priya then proceeded with her UK visa application in Pune, but the authorities sought official confirmation of the scholarship approval from the Tribal Development Department. She returned to Mantralaya and was told the email had been sent. However, the visa office had not received it. After another trip to Mumbai and hours of follow-up, an official showed her the dispatched email. She obtained a printout, only to discover that the confirmation had been sent to the wrong email address.
“I requested the department to resend the email to the correct address. They eventually did so, but by then, the university’s deadline had passed,” she said. The cancellation left her devastated. Her father had already spent nearly `6-7 lakh on the process, expecting the scholarship to cover the expenses.
A few days later, she received a call from Dinesh Waghmare, the Tribal Development Secretary, who was in Nagpur for the winter session of the Maharashtra Assembly. He invited her to meet him and urged her to apply for the scholarship again.
She reapplied and secured admission to the University of Bristol for a one-year master’s programme in law.