Recipients eager to give back to society

PUTRAJAYA: Hoping to provide the vast hinterland of Sarawak with electricity, Arijey Shankara can now look forward to realising his dream after he was awarded a Putrajaya Perdana Bhd (PPB) scholarship.

Arijey, 22, is pursuing his undergraduate studies in electrical engineering at Curtin University in Miri. He has been a scholarship recipient since 2015.

The third-year student is among 24 scholarship recipients.

“My interest in electrical engineering was sparked when I was volunteering for a school charity project in Sarawak. The village had no access to electricity and I wanted to help these rural areas,” the eldest of three said.

“I aspire to follow in my late father’s footsteps in working with PPB, but he was in the legal team. I am more interested in the engineering field. I think working with PPB will allow me to excel,” Arijey said after the scholarship award ceremony.

Another recipient, Kamala Lecthumy, 24, a student of Universiti Malaya, said the scholarship had given her a chance to pursue her goal of working in the property field.

The building surveying student said the grant helped pay her tuition fees and living expenses at a time when she thought she had to give up her ambition to further her studies.

“It’s like a dream come true because I almost gave up on pursuing higher education after getting my diploma. I needed to work to support my mother who is a housewife. Then the confirmation for the scholarship came,” said the second-year student.

“My brother sacrificed his degree studies to work as a taxi driver to help my mother. This scholarship has supported me tremendously.

“The hardest part is to maintain the first-class CGPA, and so far my results have been good. Recipients are required to submit their final semester results to PPB and sometimes they will urge you to improve your studies.”

PPB group managing director Datuk Rosman Abdullah said PPB was committed to assisting deserving students through the programme which started 12 years ago.

“We want to plan for the future. There is no better place to start than by focusing on the education of our youth. It is our obligation to develop them so that they can contribute to the nation,” he said.

He added that the recipients could serve PPB upon their graduation, which was an opportunity for the students to kick-start their career in the property and construction field.

Out of the 24 scholarship recipients, eight are in their first year of studies.

The recipients are studying at local universities in quantitative surveying, electrical, mechanical and civil engineering.

Since its conception, the PPB Scholarship Awards programme has spent RM1.5 million for 105 students. This year, PPB allocated RM202,500 for the students. By Teh Athira Yusof