Union Education Minister Shri Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ held a review meeting regarding the progress of Unnat Bharat Abhiyan Scheme (UBA) through video conferencing here today.

Secretary, Higher Education, Shri Amit Khare; Chairman, National Steering Committee, UBA Dr. Vijay Bhatkar; Chairman, National Subject Expert Group Advisory Committee, UBADr. R Chidambaram;Director, IIT Delhi, Prof Ram Gopal Rao, and National Coordinator,UBA Prof V.K.Vijay, were present during the meeting.

In the meeting, Prof V.K.Vijay apprised about the progress made under the scheme so far. He mentioned that under UBA, a network of more than 2600 participating institutions with over 14000 villages are covered. He further mentioned that 4650 village level survey data and 4,75,702 household level survey data is available on the web portal of UBA.

The Minister appreciated IIT Delhi for the progress made under UBA.He said that under the scheme, higher education institutions are connecting with the society and villages, helpingthe students and faculty to gain practical knowledge and traditional wisdom. The scheme also aims to identify innovativetechnologies, devise implementation method and enable customisation of technologies for the betterment of people, he added.

Shri Pokhriyal directed to identify three to five core issues common amongst all the villages and few issues based on local conditions and asked the participating institutions to work on these.He emphasized that efforts be made to maximise the number of HEIs under the scheme in order to benefit more villages.

The Minister stressed that UBA should be instrumental in sensitizing the school teachers regarding National Education Policy, 2020.

He highlighted the need for a portal which will serve as an interactive platform for different institutionswherein they can share success stories ad motivate each other.Shri Pokhriyalsuggestedto carry out a state-wise study and to set targets regarding the parameters under UBA such as improvement in literacy, healthcare among others.