Vidyasaarathi is a technology-enabled initiative by Protean eGov Technologies Limited (formerly NSDL e-Governance infrastructure limited). Vidyasaarathi enables underprivileged students to receive financial assistance via corporate-funded scholarships. It aims to bridge the gap in education finance in the country through an online platform. Students can search and apply to various education finance schemes they are qualified for. Fund providers, industries, and corporates can promote skill development by designing education finance schemes provided on merit by fund providers, industries, and corporates.
Ever since its inception, Vidyasaarathi has received tremendous response from the student community. More than 10 lakh students have registered on the Vidyasaarathi portal and many leading names from the Indian corporate sector have disbursed scholarships through the platform (as on January 2022).
Ministry of Corporate Affairs notified Section 135 and Schedule VII of the Companies Act as well as the provisions of the Companies (Corporate Social Responsibility Policy) Rules, 2014 (CRS Rules) which came into effect from 1 April 2014. Section 135 of the Companies Act provides the threshold limit for applicability of the CSR to a Company i.e. (a) net worth of the company to be Rs 500 crore or more; (b) turnover of the company to be Rs 1000 crore or more; (c) net profit of the company to be Rs 5 crore or more. Further as per the CSR Rules, the provisions of CSR are not only applicable to Indian companies, but also applicable to branch and project offices of a foreign company in India. Vidyasaarathi can be used by fund providers, industries, and corporate entities to promote skill development by designing and managing education finance schemes using this platform to disburse their CSR fund in higher education.
Due to unaffordable and increasing fees structure of the higher education in India many students misses out on the higher education due to lack of funds. Those students that are willing to pursue higher education and need financial support can use Vidyasaarathi platform to avail the required financial support. Students seeking for education scholarship can search and apply for various education finance schemes that they are qualified for.
Vidyasaarathi allows fund providers to create their own education finance scheme and manage it through their own foundation or through a Vidyasaarathi empanelled trust/ foundation. Through Vidyasaarathi the fund providers are able to;
Protean eGov Technologies Ltd. (Protean), is one of the key IT enabled service providers engaged in conceptualizing, developing and executing nationally critical and population scale greenfield technology solutions.. The company has extensively collaborated with the government over the last 25 years in creating digital public infrastructure and developing innovative citizen centric e-governance solutions.The company's core strength lies in not just enabling technology, but also providing the necessary interventions for ecosystem creation and adoption of new technologies and business models.
In these two-and-a-half decades, the company has created strong e-governance interventions impacting multiple sectors of the Indian economy and touching various aspects of a citizen's life - modernizing the direct tax infrastructure, providing a tax identity to citizens and corporates (issuance of PAN card), strengthening the old-age social security infrastructure (National Pension System NPS & Atal Pension Yojna APY), promoting financial inclusion by contributing to the India Stack by enrolling citizens for National Identity and enabling the BFSI sector by providing Aadhaar-based identity authentication and e-Sign services. Over these years, the company has implemented and managed 18 projects spread across seven ministries and autonomous bodies, ushering positive change in delivery of public services
To create a truly inclusive service delivery mechanism Protean has established a pan India network of centres to provide assisted services to the digitally excluded. This Phygital model created by Protean promotes and enables universal access and financial inclusion in the country without bias Visit www.egov-nsdl.co.in for more information.
