Maharashtra Govt Approves Rs 3 Crore for NASA Trip for 51 Science Expo Winners Nagpur: The Maharashtra government has approved over Rs 3 crore to send 51 school science exhibition awardees on an eight-day educational trip to NASA in the United States under the Mukhyamantri Vidyarthi Vigyan Yatri scheme. The initiative, conceived by state education minister of state Pankaj Bhoyar, was approved by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis during the recent assembly session. The scheme aims to enhance the quality of science exhibitions by linking them to educational opportunities at prestigious institutions like NASA and ISRO. The NASA trip will include 51 students, along with a male teacher, a female teacher, and two administrative officers. The expenditure will be drawn from the state education budget under the State Science Education Institute. Students will be selected from those who top the state-level science exhibition across general, divyang (persons with disabilities), and tribal categories in both primary and secondary groups. The allocation for the 51 seats is as follows: 17 for the primary general category, 18 for the secondary general category, four each for the primary and secondary divyang categories, and four each for the primary and secondary tribal categories. A committee chaired by the director of the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) in Pune will oversee the selection and planning for the NASA visit. The scheme, cleared by the Cabinet on March 24, connects school science exhibitions at three levels—taluka, district, and state—to progressively higher-profile educational visits. At the district level, 180 students and eight supervisors will visit ISRO in Bengaluru, with a per-person ceiling of Rs 35,000, funded through DPDC allocations.#nasa #devendra_fadnavis #maharashtra_govt #pankaj_bhoyar #mukhyamantri_vidyarthi_vigyan_yatri
