The district administration on Monday stepped in to ensure that financial constraints do not block a meritorious student’s admission to IIT Guwahati, handing over ₹1 lakh to help her secure her seat in the institute’s Data Science and Artificial Intelligence programme.Deputy commissioner Himanshu Jain hands over the cheque to Harpreet Kaur in Ludhiana on Monday. (HT PHOTO)Deputy commissioner Himanshu Jain handed over the cheque to Harpreet Kaur, a resident of Sahnewal and daughter of a daily wage labourer, who had cleared the entrance examination for the four-year work-integrated BSc (Hons) programme (Honours) programme in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence offered by IIT Guwahati. She, however, faced a ₹50,000 shortfall required to confirm her admission before the June 16 deadline.She said she appeared for an online entrance examination conducted by IIT Guwahati on June 7 and was subsequently informed about her selection for the programme.Harpreet’s selection follows a strong academic record, with 94% in Class X (2023) and over 90% in Class XII (2025) from the Senior Secondary Residential School for Meritorious Students. She later cleared a competitive selection process involving a written examination, group discussion and interview under the TechBee pathway.The total course fee is approximately ₹3.74 lakh, payable over 12 trimesters across four years, making the programme financially demanding for her family, where her father works as a daily wage labourer and her mother is a homemaker. In a further development, industrialist Rakesh Bharti Mittal, through the Nehru Sidhant Kendra Trust, has announced full sponsorship of Harpreet’s education for the entire duration of her course at Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, securing her academic future.