Coached under SC scholarship, student cracks IIT

Kumar was among the 4,953 students who had enrolled under the AAP government’s ‘Jai Bhim Mukhyamantri Pratibha Vikas Yojana’ in 2018-19. He was enrolled at the Sachdeva Colleges Ltd coaching centre in Patel Nagar for four months.

Kumar is aware that his future promises to be nothing like his past. The fact that the lives of his parents is also set for a transformative change is not lost on him either.

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But the 16-year-old, the youngest son of a labourer and a domestic help, will breathe easy only when he gets the course of his choice: “I hope I get to study Computer Science, something that I always aspired for.”

On Monday, Kumar shared the dais with Delhi Social Welfare Minister Rajendra Pal Gautam during a press conference on the “success of the scheme”.

Under the scheme, which was launched in 2017, assistance up to Rs 40,000, along with a Rs 2,500 monthly stipend, is provided to students whose family income is below Rs 6 lakh per annum.

The students are then enrolled in empanelled coaching institutes for competitive exams such as NEET, JEE-Advanced and CAT.

“I took coaching for four months. I was also given books. I got Rs 10,000, and I did not have to pay anything,” Kumar, who studied in a Delhi government school in Pashchim Vihar, said.

“It was in Class IX or X when a teacher told me about IIT-JEE. So I decided to go for it. No one else in my class sat for the exam or opted for the scheme,” he said.

According to an official statement, in 2018-19, 35 of 107 students enrolled under the scheme cracked JEE-Advanced and NEET exams.