New Delhi, Sept. 4 : India''s largest IT Scholarship Program - the 18th Bhavishya Jyoti Scholarship Test - will be conducted on September 21 (Sunday) by NIIT across over 400 education centres in the country.

The scholarship program rewards fee waivers to meritorious students and graduates desirous of building successful careers in diverse industries that require Information Technology skills.

NIIT plans to offer scholarship to 20,000 students in the country, this year, based on their performance in the competitive written test, personal interview and Class XIIth score.

With the theme of ''Prepare to Win'', this year''s program will offer Merit based fee waiver of up to Rs. 40,000 on NIIT''s IT training programs. A special feature of this year''s Bhavishya Jyoti Scholarship is that NIIT will also offer 100 percent scholarships to up to 500 graduate-applicants, based on merit.

Additionally, for graduates who have job-offer letters from IT companies and are on wait list, NIIT will offer enhanced scholarship to enable them to enroll for relevant programs and enhance their IT skills.

Announcing the launch of the scholarship test, G. Raghavan, President-Individual Learning Business, NIIT said: ''''Bhavishya Jyoti Scholarship Test has become India''s largest IT Scholarship Test with over 300,000 students benefitting from it in the last 17 years. This is NIIT''s effort to recognise and encourage meritorious students from varied economic backgrounds, and enable the global IT industry find skilled talent pool.''''

As per NASSCOM, there is an estimated demand for 850,000 skilled professionals in the IT services domain, by 2010.

Students who have completed their Class XIIth or equivalent, those currently pursuing graduation and/or completed graduation in any stream, and Polytechnic diploma holders are eligible for NIIT Bhavishya Jyoti Scholarships. The scholarship will be offered on a wide range of NIIT programs including GNIIT, NIIT Edgeineers and NIIT Globalnet+.

The application forms for the test are available at NIIT education centers across the country. Students can also log on to www. niiteducation. com/bjs and register for the examination. The last date for receipt of application is September 20, 2008.

The Bhavishya Jyoti Scholarship was launched by NIIT in 1991 to enable financially challenged meritorious students to pursue a career in computers and add to the nation''''s trained manpower base. (ANI)