Fatherless students’ sponsorship
By 2018, The Weekend Leader reported, he was sponsoring the education of about 3,300 students who had lost their fathers, in around 260 schools, up to Class 12.
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Education & Children
A classroom seat for every child who lost a parent.
Long before the weddings, the Savani family was building schools. Today Mahesh Savani uses that network to make one promise again and again: a child who has lost a father should not also lose an education.
The institutions
From one school in Varachha to a university.
The PP Savani Group’s first school opened in Surat’s Varachha area in the 1980s. According to the group, Vallabhbhai Savani laid its foundation stone in 1982 at Khodiyar Nagar. A group school’s own history records that P P Savani Chaitanya Vidya Sankul began with 287 students, with a Cambridge-curriculum programme following in 2007.
The network now includes the PP Savani Cambridge International School, several branches of PP Savani Vidyabhavan and Radiant English Academy, and P.P. Savani School in Ankleshwar. The Chaitanya Vidya Sankul campus at Abrama, Mota Varachha, is where the annual weddings are held, so the daughters marry on a school campus.
P P Savani University
P P Savani University was established in 2017 under the Gujarat Private Universities (Amendment) Act, 2017. Its main campus is on NH48 at Dhamdod village near Kosamba, in Surat district, with a second campus at Vesu. It is listed by the University Grants Commission and held its first convocation in 2020, graduating 162 students. Its schools cover engineering, architecture, nursing, pharmacy, physiotherapy, agriculture, homoeopathy and Ayurveda, among other disciplines. Vallabhbhai Savani is the university’s president.
Education in figures
3,300Fatherless students whose schooling up to Class 12 he was sponsoring across about 260 schools (reported 2018)
1,000Students under the Vidyarthi Dattak Yojana, launched December 2022
2017Year P P Savani University was established near Kosamba, Surat district
162Graduates at the university’s first convocation in 2020
A later Gujarati profile puts the number of orphaned students supported at more than 8,600; the date of that figure is not stated.
Programmes & pledges
Promises made to children.
Each commitment below was made publicly and reported in the press. Where a pledge depended on families taking it up, we describe what was offered.
Vidyarthi Dattak Yojana
A student adoption scheme announced at the December 2022 ceremony, covering 1,000 orphaned, disabled or economically weak students, including coaching for medical, engineering and chartered accountancy examinations.
Children of the Uri martyrs
After the attack of 18 September 2016, he offered to pay the fees of the martyred soldiers’ children at their existing schools, or to give them free schooling and hostel places at PP Savani schools in Surat, as well as support for higher education and for the daughters’ weddings. Within days he had traced eight families.
Children orphaned at Pahalgam
In April 2025 he pledged full education, through graduation and including NEET and JEE coaching, for children orphaned in the Pahalgam attack, whatever their state or school board, through PP Savani School and PP Savani University.
The daughters’ own children
Support does not stop with the brides. In 2017 the family was reported to be covering maternity costs for the daughters and the schooling of the children born to them.
An earlier offer after Kargil
Speaking in 2016, he said he had made a similar education offer after the Kargil war but had received no response. After Uri, he wrote directly to the Prime Minister and the defence ministry.
In his words
Quote on the Uri pledge
“We are offering two options for the martyred soldiers’ children’s education. The school-going children can continue to study in their present school or come to Surat to study.”
Mahesh Savani, September 2016, as reported by The Weekend Leader
A note on children’s privacy
Protecting the children we write about.
This website does not publish photographs, names or personal details of children supported through these programmes, or of the families of martyred soldiers. Figures are given in aggregate, and every programme is described from public reporting.
Families seeking information about admission or support should contact the PP Savani Group or P P Savani University directly through their official channels, listed on the Contact page.
Sources
- PP Savani Group, ppsavanigroup.com; PP Savani Cambridge International School, “About PPSCIS”.
- P P Savani University, ppsu.ac.in; Wikipedia, “P P Savani University”.
- The Weekend Leader, “Kind act” (Sep 2016) and “Father of many” (Feb 2018).
- CIA Live; TV9 Gujarati; Diamond City News (Dec 2022).
- Daily Sabah (Dec 2017).
- Aaj Tak (25 Apr 2025).
- Gujarat First, profile of Mahesh Savani.