SAKSHAM - the scholarship management system of Government of Uttar Pradesh, developed and implemented by NIC, U.P. State Unit, received the NASSCOM 2013 Social Innovation Honour on 13th February 2013 at Grand Hyaat Mumbai.  The award was presented to Shri S B Singh Deputy Director General NIC, UP and Shri R H Khan Senior Technical Director NIC, UP by the Chief Minister of Maharashtra Shri Prithviraj Chavan & Minister of Commerce and Industry, GoI, Shri Anand Sharma amidst a gathering of IT professional from India than 30+ countries.

‘SAKSHAM’ has been developed with an aim to automate the complete scholarship distribution system in the state and to eliminate leakages and frauds in scholarship distribution. It is a delivery oriented solution that patronizes students and monitors their growth throughout the education lifecycle. Many technological innovations have been carried out to directly transfer the scholarship to the beneficiary and make the processes simple and easy for the students. The complete statistics of more than 4 crore beneficiaries from the minority community and the weaker section of the society is available on the scholarship portal (scholarship.up.nic.in).

The NSIH 2013 was given by NASSCOMM foundation which is a non-profit organization under the industry body NASSCOM. The awards, organized in partnership with Genpact, celebrate innovations that promise to bring social change in India. Participants from across public, private and not-for-profit sectors showcase innovations in the form of a principle, an idea, an intervention or a combination of all of the above. The award to Scholarship was given under the category – ‘ICT led social innovation by a Government body’.

The jury member comprised of India’s corporate leaders and strategists, including Shri S. Ramadorai, Vice Chairman, Tata Consultancy Services Ltd Shri Rama Bijapurkar, Expert, India’s Consumer Economy and Business Marketing Strategy and Shri Ganesh Natarajan Vice Chairman, CEO of Zenser Technology.

Another project from Uttar Pradesh - the IVRS based daily monitoring system for Mid-day Meal was also awarded the UNICEF Special Recognition Award - 'Innovation for children' by NASSCOM.

The NIC state project team was led by Shri S.B. Sngh, DDG, Shri. R.H. Khan, STD, Ms. Shubha Srivastava, PSA, Shri. Parwaiz Islam, PSA & Shri Udai Kant Jha, SOE