TURA: Over 2,000 candidates are appearing for the Mega IAS scholarship examination on Saturday in all the 11 district headquarters of Meghalaya.
The state government in collaboration with ALS, New Delhi, is conducting the exams to select 200 candidates from the state to undergo intense coaching and preparation for the civil service examinations.
Top 100 students will be given full scholarship worth Rs 95 lakh under the Chief Minister’s Career Guidance programme, and another 100 will get scholarships worth Rs 45 lakh from ALS as part of its CSR to pursue the course in Shillong or Tura.
ALS is the largest civil service education provider in the country with an average of 25 percentages of selections in civil service exams and several ranks annually.
In Meghalaya, ALS provides coaching via V-Sat at the MIIT centre in Shillong, and at Don Bosco Academy (DBA), Tura.
While the Shillong centre was initiated and supported by MP Vincent Pala, the Tura centre was the initiative of former MP and current chief minister Conrad K Sangma.
ALS runs 75 centres in the country, of which 25 are in the North East. Similar programmes have been launched in collaboration with the governments of Arunachal Pradesh, Tripura and Mizoram.
Fr George Plathottam sdb, Director DBA, said there has been a lot of enthusiasm among students about the scheme.
“With this opportunity we hope in a few years, Meghalaya will feature prominently among states producing civil service officers for the nation. It was the wish of the chief minister that the tests be held in each district so as to provide easy access to anyone who wants to apply for the programme,” he said.
Fr Plathottam who is coordinating the scholarship exams in the five districts of Garo Hills said the administration has been “very supportive of the programme by giving publicity and doing the logistics for the test”.
