26k students get scholarship this yr

Mangaluru: The Shri Kshetra Dharmasthala Rural Development Programme (SKDRDP) has distributed scholarships to 26,200 students under its Sujnananidhi scholarship scheme this year.
SKDRDP executive director Dr LH Manjunath said that the Sujnananidhi scholarship is for children of Pragathi Bandhu Swa Sahaya Sangha members who are pursuing professional and technical courses. The scholarship programme was introduced by SKDRDP, under the guidance of Dharmastala Dharmadhikari D Veerendra Heggade, to ensure that meritorious students from economically poor families pursue professional courses.
Accordingly, scholarship is paid for technical and professional courses. For a three-year course, a monthly scholarship of Rs 400 are given to students while for a five-year course, the students get a monthly scholarship of Rs 1,000. The amount is directly credited to the account of students till they complete the course.
“The students, who had availed the scholarship and are now employed have formed Sujnananidhi Vridhi Sangha and are contributing towards the scholarship. So far, 225 of them have contributed Rs 9.52 lakh,” said Manjunath. Some of the beneficiaries of the scholarship are serving as doctors, teachers, IT professionals, among others, he said.
The Sujnananidhi scholarship was started during the silver jubilee celebrations of SKDRDP in 2007. Since then, a total amount of Rs 82.52 crore has been disbursed among 71,091 students, he added.