Nua-O scholarship scheme launched; all you need to know about Nabin Odisha Magic Card

Bhubaneswar: Registration for ambitious Nabin Odisha Magic Card is to begin March 15 and the cards will be handed over to different beneficiaries on August 15, this year. The online registration portal for this card will be launched on March 5.

This was announced today by 5T and Nabin Odisha Chairman during the launching of the revolutionary Nua-O scholarship scheme in Sambalpur, Angul, and Deogarh districts.

Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik will soon launch a smart card system for the students – to be known as Nabin Odisha Magic Card – for which applications will be invited. This transformational initiative under 5T will deeply impact higher education and empower the youth to achieve their dreams.

The Magic card will have a point-based system which will be categorised into Silver, Gold, and Platinum cards depending on the students’ academic performances, discipline, extra-curricular activities, social work etc. This will be a unique initiative of the CM to provide benefits to students such as bus/train concession, phone recharge, wifi access, online courses, and career counselling.

Each magic card will have some basic features, which will be applicable to all students. As a top-up, students can enable themselves to get silver, gold, and platinum cards based on their scholastic and extra-curricular work. Community engagement will be an important feature of student engagements entitling them to extra points.

This card will also provide Job and Placement opportunities through the sharing of this data with potential recruiting companies – a LinkedIn-type platform for the students to interact with the industry and will integrate with the Start-Up ecosystem to encourage the students to aspire to be entrepreneurs and also to provide priority loans for the students under various schemes like Swayam etc.

The government will actively engage with the private sector to provide more benefits to the students through these smart cards.

Notably, the Nua-O Scholarship under which all eligible PG and UG Students from State government Universities, Govt Colleges, non-Govt aided and unaided Colleges will be benefitted. The scholarship amount for General and OBC male and female students is Rs. 9,000 and Rs 10,000 respectively whereas for SC/ST and Nirman Shramik male and female students, it is Rs 10,000 and Rs 11,000 respectively.

All eligible students will get the scholarship amount in their bank accounts by March 5. The State government will make all efforts to provide support to meritorious aspiring students to get the best of higher educational facilities, the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) mentioned.

In today’s programme, a total of around 28,112 eligible students from these three districts received a scholarship worth about Rs 28 crore.