Bengaluru: Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai’s pet-project Vidyanidhi, is an annual scholarship for agriculturists’ children studying in PU or ITI, degree, LLB/paramedical, B.Pharm, MBBS, and engineering courses. Thousands of students received money in their bank accounts as part of this project.
According to officials, Vidyanidhi is the first welfare scheme in Karnataka to use Kutumba, a large database containing data on families across the State, to automatically identify eligible beneficiaries.
Kutumba now contains information on 5.5 crore people from 1.6 crore families. It is also linked to the education department’s database and the Farmer Registration & Unified Beneficiary Information System (FRUITS), which includes information on seven million farmers, ration card databases, and caste/income certificates.
The government has found that 3.5 lakh of the 13 lakh PU students are from farming families, with two lakh receiving scholarship money directly into their Aadhaar-linked bank accounts. Approximately 17 lakh students are eligible for a number of scholarships.
