Students, selected for Future and Light for Young scholarship, at a function in Dhanbad. Picture by Gautam Dey

Dhanbad, July 30: He had had to struggle hard to make it to the top of the ladder and, so, wants to ease the climb for others.

Purushottam Mishra, an UK-based hardware engineer, has established an organisation Future and Light for Young (FLY) that bear the cost of education of 100 meritorious students coming from humble background.

Son of a teacher, Mishra lived in Dhanbad and studied in a nondescript school. He later moved to Tata DAV Jamadoba where he studied science. After his graduation he went on to complete his MTech from IIT Bombay.

Talking about the scholarship programme, Mishra said: “My schooling played a crucial role in shaping my career. So I do not want meritorious students to lose out on education due to lack funds. Therefore, I came up with this idea of offering scholarship.”

Till now, 39 students have been selected for the scholarship programme through a test conducted in Dhanbad earlier this month. The remaining 61 children will be selected from Jehanabad, Udaipur, Nasik, Hyderabad, Thane and Bangalore following a similar test.

The selected students will get the chance to study in reputed institutes and the entire cost will be borne by the organisation.

On being asked why students of only these cities are being zeroed in for the scholarship, he said the members of FLY, who are also the sponsors of scholarship, have their roots here.

Selection started in June will be complete by August.