SIVASAGAR, Oct 18 - Ten years ago, Pallabh Borgohain was in a school at Lakwa, a remote village in Sivasagar district.
Though he wanted to become an engineer, he was bogged down by his family�s meagre income and was clueless about what a premiere engineering college would be like.
Ten kilometres away in another village near Simaluguri, Nilim Kumar Konwar was also facing a similar predicament.
The thoughts of where and how they could realise their dream of becoming engineers persistently troubled them in school.
Thanks to ONGC�s Super 30 flagship programme, both of them have become engineers now and are working in reputed organisations.
The Super 30 initiative was aimed at nurturing talents of the meritorious students to help them pursue their dream of entering the portals of premiere engineering institutes of the country and the objective has been achieved in an emphatic manner.
Now, Pallabh Borgohain has an engineering degree from NIT Silchar and works in Wipro in Bangalore.
�My career got wings with my entry into ONGC Super 30. It has changed the way people look at me and my family in our village,� he said.
Nilim Kumar also passed out of Silchar NIT and currently works for L&T in Kancheepuram, Tamil Nadu.
�Getting a seat in ONGC Super 30 was a turning point in my career. With a dream job in L&T, people in the village say I have made my village Ramugaon proud,� Kumar said.
Prior to the start of ONGC Super 30 in 2014, the district had no coaching institute to prepare young aspirants to crack one of the toughest entrance exams, JEE. Due to lack of such institutes, their dreams used to remain un-realised.
Now, the dreams of the young hopefuls are being turned into reality by ONGC�s Super 30 initiative. This project was started under the Centre for Social Responsibility and Leadership (CSRL) and fully supported by the ONGC.
Several students of the first batch (2014) after completing engineering courses are now placed in organisations like L&T, Star Cement, Wipro, Burckhardt, Indian Army, Violet INK, Mediterranean Shipping Company, etc.
Students from all across Assam appear for the entrance exam to secure a berth in the Super 30. Every year, over 1000 students appear in the entrance test. Of them, only 30 are selected for the intensive coaching for 11 months with free boarding facilities.
Academic support is provided through classroom teaching by experienced faculties. Regular mock tests are supplemented by critical performance evaluation of the students.
ONGC has spent Rs 370 lakh since the inception of the project helping 115 students to get admission in the country�s prestigious engineering colleges, including IITs, NITs, RGITs. To be precise, 29 students of the project have become IITians.
