The Uttar Pradesh, Scholarship Management System (SAKSHAM) being used for distribution of Postmatric Scholarships and Fee Re-imbursement is in the news for weeding out fake students & institutes involved in mal-practices. The web based portal which was initiated way back in 2007-08 as an online disbursement system for scholarship (directly into the bank account of students) has over the years developed into a major tool for the government to streamline the scholarship distribution process in the state, eliminate duplicate records and schools and have a clean and transparent system.
The State Government decided to introduce ‘Online system for Postmatric Scholarship and Fee Reimbursement’ from session 2013-14. Accordingly, the web based application was customized and tuned to suit the requirements. Integration was carried out with already available data of UP Board of Secondary Education (Intermediate & High School), Public Funds Management System (PFMS) of GoI, UP Treasury, Banks to have a foolproof authentication mechanism. Online sanction of applications, digitally signing and preparation of Beneficiary & Transaction files for transfer of funds to students account was also done to ensure that the benefits were transferred only to authenticated users. For session 2014-15, the total number of online registration was nearly 81 Lakhs, the number of application submitted were approx 66 lakhs and total number of records forwarded by DIOS/Higher Education Officer were 54.72 Lakhs.
Another significant feature added by NIC UP state unit, Lucknow was provide a mechanism to track the information of the student related to high school roll number. Anybody from the state/district administration, students himself or any other stakeholder can check the scholarship details of the students from year 2007 to 2014 using the high school roll number. This feature helped in weeding out duplicate records to a large extent.
The features not only helped the government in weeding out corruption and other mal practices in the scholarship and fee-reimbursement processes but also helped the students to know if there information was being used by institutes and other agencies in carrying out forgery. The efforts of NIC & State Government were also lauded by the Print Media.
http://scholarship.up.nic.in
