While the state government has stopped awarding scholarship to poor and meritorious students of colleges and universities, the central government and some public sector undertakings have of late come forward to help talented boys and girls.

At least two such offers were received by Patna University (PU) scholars recently. The Oil and Natural Gas Commission (ONGC) has offered a monthly scholarship of Rs 5000 for one year to the topper of MSc (part I) geology. An MOU between the ONGC and PU for the purpose is likely to be signed soon, said PU students' welfare dean P K Poddar.

PU statistics department's five scholars, including three from MSc final year and two from MSc previous year, have been selected for summer internship by the Union ministry of statistics and programme implementation. Each student will get a monthly stipend of Rs 5000 during the internship.

Altogether 123 scholars from across the country have been selected for this training. PU science faculty dean Arun Kumar Sinha said the selected PU students would be reporting at Lucknow and Muzaffarpur for their two-month internship.

Meanwhile, statistics teacher Amarendra Mishra has joined as the new head of the PG statistics department of PU in place of Arun Kumar Sinha who completed his three-year term on April 30.

PU on Tuesday decided to advance the examination of 20th paper of MBA (part II) from May 28 to May 7 in view of a representation made by the 71 examinees.