Scholarships:
1. SIR T.S. Venkatraman Memorial Scholarship
2. Smt. Vemuri Sitaramamma & Sri. Vemuri Someswara Rao Memorial Scholarships

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Sir T. S. Venkatraman (1884- – 1963), who made lasting contributions to the development of hybrid sugarcane, is being honored and memorialized today by the establishment of a perpetual scholarship, Sir T. S. Venkatraman Memorial Scholarship. During 1912-1942, Sir T. S. headed the Sugarcane Breeding Institute in Coimbatore and developed a variety of hybrid sugarcanes that were subsequently used the world over as genetic stock for developing new breeds. He always looked to the wilderness for appropriate genes for bettering cultivated crops, especially sugarcane. His other two interests were in preserving and utilizing medicinal plants of India and stemming the growth of India’s population and was one of the earliest advocates of family planning. He constantly worried about loosing our precious gene pools by sheer and mindless deforestation activities. He felt that unbridled population growth as one of the main pressure points for the destruction of our forest wealth. He did play an active role in educating people on the need for family planning and stressed the impact of population growth on natural resources of the country. He was way ahead of his times.

After retirement, although he wanted to start a collection of medicinal plants, he was unable to do so for various reasons. However, his interest in this field never died. He felt that basic fieldwork to be extremely important in this endeavor. To fulfil this last wish of his grandfather, Mr. Jagy Pottur is establishing today a corpus fund for the creation of scholarships to promote research on population control, plant genetics, and medicinal plants. Eco Foundation is being entrusted with the sacred duty of administering these scholarships.

From next year onwards, 2-4 academically deserving students who have achieved a high standard of scholarship and working either at a university or postgraduate center in India will be selected by a distinguished panel of judges. Annual awards in the amount of Rs. 10,000 each will be made to support the student’s research. The intent of these awards is to encourage students to pursue their research in the broad and general area of plant genetics of medicinal plants and related matters pertaining to population control.

This award, at the discretion of the Foundation, can be extended to additional years, for a maximum of three years, if the candidate shows promising results. Candidates must submit fresh applications with evidence of work accomplished every year. Grant recipients are encouraged to publish their work in scholarly journals. The Foundation must be acknowledged in scientific meetings and publications.

Note: Eco Foundation, in consultation with the judging panel, will administer the scholarship. Please wait for our future announcements on this site.