Sarathi Under Fire For Demanding Land Record From Foreign Scholarship Applicants

Shahu Maharaj Research, Training and Human Development Institute (Sarathi), a state government organization meant to facilitate higher education for Maratha students abroad, has been criticized for adding what student activists call "excessive and unfair" documentation to its 2025 foreign scholarship program.

As per student activist Kuldeep Ambekar, president of Student Helping Hands, Sarathi now requires students to provide land records as part of their scholarship application—a step he calls harassment.

Sarathi has gone beyond limits… Now the only thing remaining is to get students to submit their land documents," Ambekar said. He claimed that in the name of scrutiny and regulation, the institute is enforcing unreasonable procedural hurdles that are deterring and taking a toll on applicants.

According to documents retrieved by The Free Press Journal, students are also asked to file three independent legal statements—an undertaking, a bond, and an affidavit—each on a Rs500 non-judicial stamp paper attested by a public notary. These are necessary even at the application level, taking initial costs into thousands. Also, the schedule of compulsory submissions extends to 24 in number, such as caste validity, domicile, income certificates, and proof of GRE/TOEFL or IELTS scores, many of which have to be certified or notarised.

Ambekar asserted that the scholarship is now a bureaucratic nightmare instead of an assisting mechanism. "This is nothing less than procrastination. Sarathi is adding obstacles day by day through a new 'rulebook' that has made it complicated and time-consuming," he asserted.

While the 2025 application cycle raises fresh concerns, students selected under last year’s cycle are still waiting for financial support. Ambekar revealed that 75 students chosen for the scholarship in 2024 have not received a single rupee. “Some of them are managing expenses through education loans, while others are working part-time jobs abroad just to afford meals. Yet, Sarathi’s only response is—‘there is no budget’,” he said.

In one of such instances, a student who was admitted to the University of Leeds for a postgraduate MSc in Human Resources and Organisations applied with a detailed breakdown of costs, indicating a total of £29,250 (approximately Rs31.46 lakh) for fees, living expenses, travel, and insurance. Though completing all documentation, there has been no transparency regarding funding.

Ambekar reaffirmed that scholarship is a right, not a privilege. "The scheme is well-advertised, but on the ground, it is students being abandoned and asked to fend for themselves. This policy needs to end," he asserted and called for Sarathi to make it easy and disburse funds without any delay.