Pune: udChalo, a leading travel company providing ease to last moment travel problems of the Indian Armed Forces personnel, on Friday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Army Institute of Technology (AIT) to provide scholarships for degree courses at the institute. Based at Dighi hills, Pune, AIT is an engineering college for wards of army personnel.
Ravi Kumar (32), founder of Pune-based udChalo, said, “The scholarship for this year will have an outlay of Rs four lakh to be disbursed to the dependents of serving and retired Army jawans studying at the institute. This scholarship will support 32 students towards pursuing the courses and other interventions for their educational and personal growth over and above their regular course work to evolve as a total quality person in life. The scholarship covers and encourages students in the early days to think beyond just academics and develop enterprising capabilities to emerge as an asset to the nation.”
Founders of udChalo, Ravi Kumar and Varun Jain, are also AIT alumni.
AIT Director Brig Abhay A Bhat (retd) said, “They have made a point to employ mostly defence forces personnel wherever possible, specifically the war wounded and specially challenged soldiers. Now udChalo has gone a step further, and as part of their CSR activity, have now decided to award scholarships to students of AIT, which is again giving back to their alma mater. Not only will some deserving students benefit from this scholarship but many of them will be motivated to follow udChalo’s footsteps and launch many more such social entrepreneurship.”
udChalo operates over 40 counters at various Cantonment areas with poor connectivity and remote locations; notably the one at Uri, Jammu and Kashmir, which is 4 km from the LoC. The company employs over 80 veterans from all ranks providing them a promising opportunity to serve the forces and country even after retirement. During 2017-18, udChalo helped over five lakh Armed Forces personnel and families to fly with convenience and comfort.”