With regards to bridge the gap between rural -urban crowd, Indian Institute of Technology has taken a unique step. It will give its bachelor students a fellowship to experience the rural life. Starting this summer, those budding engineers willing to live in villages for three-six weeks will get a Gram fellowship. This initiative will bring the new age city students near rural life. Around nine students of B.Tech have showed interested in this fellowship.

Dean (students) Jaison Manjaly informed that this move aims to bridge the urban-rural divide. 

"Majority of the students in IITs are from metros or large cities and they have hardly had a chance to see rural India. They do not know about village life, its problems and the way villagers live. "The Gram Fellowship will provide them an opportunity to visit a village in any part of India, live with a family for a minimum of 3 weeks to a maximum of 6 weeks. The students will work or accompany the persons to workplace — be it farming, business or anything," Manjaly informed. 

The institute believes that during the stay with the family in the village, the students will not only get exposed to the rural hardships or people's problems, this project may also inspire them to take up assignments to solve the issues. "However, it is not mandatory. If students like to take up a project to address issues faced by the villagers, they will be provided with Rs 25,000. The fund can be used to develop product, service or any solution," said IITGn Director Sudhir Jain.

Rushabh Pravin Desadla (21), one of the students who has opted to visit Hemalkasa village in Maharashtra said that this will be his first experience of living in a village. "I chose this as I want to work with Dr Prakash Amte who works with Madia Goad tribes and other villages apart from setting up an animal park in the village. By working with them, I will be able to understand the problems faced by the villagers and the solutions provided by Amte. This will be a good learning experience," Rushabh said. This is for the first time that IIT-GN has introduced such a fellowship which enables students to travel different states.