Sitaram Jindal Foundation is currently giving scholarships to about 12000 students with the following objectives:-

• To enable poor students to continue their studies.
• To encourage meritorious students to do still better.

These objectives are achieved to a large extent and the existing scholarship scheme will be continued.

There are still a very large number of destitute children and those belonging to extremely poor families who are not able to go to school since they have to work to augment their family income by doing physical work. There is a need to provide an opportunity to study for such children by giving scholarship which will augment the family income and allow the child to get educated.

Objective – For inclusive growth in education and to provide opportunity to those denied educational facilities so far.

Rationale – Street children, homeless children, orphans (outside orphanages), dropouts and other children in the poorest of poor of BPL families are either not able to go to school at all or dropout after studying for a few years. This is regardless of the fact that most states provide free education with free books, uniform and midday meals to such children. An important reason for such children not going to school is that such children are a source of income for the family either by begging in bigger towns and cities or by doing petty manual works.

Unless this financial need of such children and more so of their families in case of poorest of poor BPL families are met, such children will never be able to join the school for study.

Financial needs of the family or the compensation for the loss of income of the family because of the child going to school would have to be taken care of to ensure that such children join the school. This scholarship will be in the nature of helping the family to compensate the loss of wages of such children.

Scholarship will be given as Attendance Incentive @ Rs. 10/- per day of actual attendance for boys and @ Rs 12/- per day of actual attendance for girls.

Upto 1000 Children would be admitted in the scheme in the first year. The admission of the destitute children will be only from I std to X Std. The age of the child should not be less than 7 years. The scholarship will continue to be given to the child in Std. XI and XII also if the child wants to study further. For study beyond XII Std., or for undertaking ITI or other courses earlier even before doing X standard for job oriented courses, the child will have to apply afresh under the regular scholarship scheme of the Foundation. About 1000 new children may be added to the scheme ever year depending upon the successful progress of the scheme as assessed by the Foundation and availability of funds. The Foundation reserves the right to discontinue the scheme at any time without assigning any reason.

A Savings bank account will be opened with the first scholarship in the name of child and the mother or father if mother is not alive, or in the name of the child and the legal guardian if neither of the parents is alive.

Identification of such children who are genuinely street children / homeless / orphans etc. would be done by NGOs to be involved in this exercise. Only those children will be eligible to get scholarship under this scheme who are currently not studying in any formal school. The NGOs would be selected by sending emails to as many NGOs as possible. NGOs would be fully responsible about the genuineness of the children so chosen by them. The Foundation would examine and approve the names of beneficiaries after getting the proposals from the NGOs. Only those names approved by the Foundation would be considered under the scheme. In case of any fraud, manipulation or misuse of funds detected any stage, the payment of scholarship will be stopped with immediate effect and action including police case will be taken to punish the wrong doers and to recover the money already paid. Sitaram Jindal Foundation will depute its representatives to conduct random surprise checks of all children studying in the schools as well as records. NGOs will send monthly attendance reports and quarterly progress repots to the foundation by email.

The Head Teacher would also send First Admission Report and Monthly Attendance Reports to the foundation through the NGO’s.

NGOs should make full use of Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act to exercise the right of every child to get free and compulsory education in any school including unaided private schools.

NGOs will be paid Rs.250/- as one time payment per each child beneficiary admitted to the school after the admission and after opening of Bank accounts as provided in the scheme. NGOs will also be paid Rs.200/- per year per each beneficiary child after his/her successful completion of one year in the school. These payments will be in the nature of reimbursements for these expenses incurred by the NGOs for identifying the beneficiary continuous follow up / monitoring of the beneficiaries' progress in the school as provided in scheme. The NGOs, however, will not need to send any vouchers/proof of expenses. Such service oriented NGOs rendering charitable and human services sincerely and devotedly can apply for donation to Sitaram Jindal Foundation and the cases will be considered on merits after scrutiny of the cases to augment their deficit or need to serve the mankind.

The Head Teahcer will also be paid Rs. 200/- per year per student studying and attending the school regularly. This amount will be payable under this scheme at the end of the academic year. The Head Teacher will obtain necessary permission for accepting this incentive herself/ himself from the competent authority.

Upto 1000 new scholarships (in addition to continuing scholarships) may be granted and added every year depending upon the successful progress of the scheme as assessed by the Foundation and the availability of funds.