SHILLONG: Meghalaya Chief Minister, Conrad Sangma said the number of youths from the state who had cleared Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) examination had been very low while it was negligible in Garo Hills region.

The CM was addressing the press on Friday at the formal announcement of scholarship under the Chief Minister Career Guidance and Counseling scheme for awarding scholarship to students undertaking IAS coaching in the state in collaboration with Alternate Learning Center (ALS)

Speaking about the importance of the programme, Sangma said, “This will go a long way for the talented youth of the state to compete at the national level. We did feel the need to come up with such a programme which will allow more of our talented youth to have the opportunity to get training like this.”

The CM said it was a very important programme undertaken by the state government which felt the urgent need to have such a training programme as a lot of aspiring students from the state cannot afford to go for the coaching outside the state.

“Earlier, the government started to send some students to Delhi but with the availability of suitable technology, we felt we can cover more students with a certain budget as sending an individual to Delhi costs a bit more. Now with the same amount we can give the same facility to many more students. Therefore, we thought that this would be the appropriate way,” he said.

“We have decided to give 100 per cent scholarship to top 100 students out of 200 that we select. There will be an examination to be held on September 29 at every district headquarter to allow and enable all youth who are interested in this to participate. In this selection process, every district will conduct an examination on September 29,” he added.

He informed that the results will be tabulated by ALS and it will be transparent process and top 200 students will be selected and a total scholarship of Rs 1.4 crore will be given to 200 students.

“Out of the Rs 1.4 crore, Rs 95 lakhs will be given from the Chief Minister’s Career Guidance and Counseling scheme and the will be used for 100 per cent funding for top 100 students who will be selected based on their performance in the examination,” Sangma said.

Similarly, national sales head of ALS, Prateek Bhattarcharya said, “After the scholarship is granted, we will be conducting the analysis of the results and then select the top 200 talents of Meghalaya who will be trained in Shillong and Tura for a period of one year. They are then expected to appear in the UPSC examination next year.”

He added that the top 100 students would be sponsored by the state government and ALS as a CSR initiative for the youth of the state would provide scholarship to the rest 100 students and the total scholarships amount available would be Rs 1.4 crore for 200 students.

He added that the highest support in terms of sponsorship has been from the Government of Meghalaya. “With coaching centers in Shillong and Tura, we should be able to get many more students from Meghalaya in the list of those clearing the UPSC examinations, which has not been the case so far,” he said.

The ALS has 75 centers across India including more than 35 centers in North East. This year the Institute has got sponsorship for students who wanted to pursue their career in Civil Services from the state governments of Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Tripura and Meghalaya.

Bhattarcharya added that more than 50,000 students from across the country had undertaken coaching from ALS in the past 25 years. The ALS also runs satellite classes across India in which live transmission of the classes is made.

The examination will be supported by the respective Deputy Commissioners of the district and ALS will conducting an awareness drive to reach out to the remotest areas of the state and find out the top talents there so that they can participate in the scholarship cum selection examination.