Tata Capital is a firm advocate of Affirmative Action and education. In order to promote technical and professional education among underprivileged students, the company has initiated a scholarship program under the brand name “Pankh” which means ‘Wings’. The objective of the Pankh Scholarship program is to mentor and fund higher education of academic achievers from economically underprivileged and Affirmative Action families. The uniqueness of this program is that this is entirely driven through the employees of the company and the beneficiaries are from the employee’s support circle viz. children of their drivers, house helps deserving and deserving children from their villages.
The employees nominate deserving candidates they know of and who require sponsorship to complete their higher studies. Shortlisted candidates go through an interview process before the final cases are selected. A prerequisite of the program is that the employee has to be the mentor of the candidate whom they are recommending. This also helps in tracking the students on their performance and final placements as well, once they successfully complete their course.
The sponsorship supports college fees and exam fees but in case any other funding is required (for textbooks, technology, hostel charges, conveyance, etc.), they will be considered on a case-to-case basis.
The selection criteria for Pankh Scholarship for students are as follows:
- The candidate should be from an SC/ST (with a valid caste certificate) and should be from an economically challenged family.
- Candidates other than SC/ST and from economically challenged families will also be considered.
- Candidates who have enrolled themselves in different fields like Art and Music, vocational courses.
- The Candidate must be academically bright and should have secured admission into college or professional education (degree/diploma), based on merit.
- To ensure continuity and sustainability of the program the employee has to mentor the nominated candidate until his/her completion of education and until suitable placement of the student.
The process to select the candidate is:
- Advertise the opening of Pankh Scholarships.
- Employees nominate potential candidates to the CSR Team.
- The candidates will be interviewed by a team comprising of CSR & HR professionals and the documents submitted by them will be verified.
- The decision for selecting the candidates will be by the CSR Team.
- The CSR Team will convey to the mentor about his/her candidate’s selection/non-selection.
- Wherever necessary, home visits to be conducted by the CSR team or an appropriate agency appointed by the company.
- Regular updates from mentee and mentor will be sought in order to monitor progress Each employee can nominate a maximum of 5 candidates.
Payment Process: As the Pankh Scholarship Program works on a reimbursement basis, the candidate will have to incur the initial expenses when seeking admission to the college/institution. Once he/she is selected under this program they will have to submit the original receipts against which the company will reimburse the fees/expenses as appropriate. The process to be followed is as below:
- The candidate will submit the original receipts along with a statement listing the reimbursements to his/her Mentor.
- The Mentor will check for the correctness of the bills and after verification, the Mentor will send the original bills to the CSR team.
- Once the original bills are received by the CSR team, they will verify the same and process the bills for reimbursement.
- The reimbursement cheque or online fund transfer will be made in the name of the candidate.
- In case the candidate is not in a position to pay the fees for his/her course, the CSR Team will first seek approval from the CSR Head and then the CHRO to make such payments either in the name of the Candidate or the Institute as a special case. It will be the responsibility of the CSR Team to collect the payment receipt from the Candidate.
Responsibility of the Mentor:
- Track the candidate’s academic progress regularly and report the same to the CSR team periodically.
- Meeting the candidates in person as and when required.
- In case the Mentor is leaving the Company, he/she should hand over mentoring of the candidate to another employee of the company who is acceptable to the CSR team or Mentor was chosen by the CSR Team
In addition to nomination by employees, the company will also accept nominations for scholarships under this program from all its existing NGO partners. The criteria of selection of candidates will remain the same as mentioned above.
The Process that will be followed with NGO partners:
- The NGO Partner will screen the candidates and submit the list to TCL.
- The candidates will be interviewed by the CSR team and the documents submitted by them will be checked/ verified.
- All selected candidates will be intimated to the appropriate NGO partners.
- The decision on the selection of the candidate is with the CSR team only.
- The CSR team will allot mentors to all candidates selected under this process.
- Wherever necessary, home visits will be conducted by the CSR team or an appropriate agency appointed by the company.
- An NGO partner can nominate a maximum of 5 candidates.
Process for reimbursement:
- The candidate should submit the original payment receipts, along with appropriate documents to the CSR team of the company for processing.
- The CSR Team will verify the documents and in case of discrepancy has the right to reject the scholarships.
- The CSR team will process the reimbursement in the name of the candidate.