Centre to directly pay SC students’ college fee up to Rs 2 lakh under revised scholarship scheme

The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment has revised the guidelines for the scholarship for students belonging to the Scheduled Caste (SC) category for the 2024-25 session. The “Top Class Scholarship for SC students” aims to promote quality education to SC students, by providing financial support to those pursuing higher education in premier institutions such as the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), National Law Universities (NLUs) among others.

Under the revised scheme, the centre will fund the full tuition fee and non-refundable charges, with a cap of Rs 2 lakh per annum in private institutions. Students will also be provided with an academic allowance of Rs 86,000 in the first year of their course and Rs 41,000 in every subsequent year for living expenses, books and stationery, computer or laptop of reputed brand with accessories like UPS and printer, etc.

The payment of tuition fee, other non-refundable charges and academic allowance will be made directly to the students through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) mode.

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The overall number of scholarships would be capped at 21,500 for the period 2021-22 to 2025-26. 4400 fresh slots are allowed for 2024-25 and 4500 for 2025-26.

SC scholarship scheme: Eligibility criteria

Those SC students whose total annual family income from all sources is up to Rs 8 lakh and have secured admission in a full-time prescribed course in any of the notified institutions according to the general selection criteria prescribed by the concerned institution, will be eligible for scholarship.

In case the number of eligible students admitted exceeds the number of slots allotted to the institution, the scholarship will be restricted to the top students in the inter-se merit list based on the admission criteria for the course. However, if there is more than one student with equal marks for the last available slot in an institution, preference should be given to the student with the lower family income.

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Fresh scholarships will be awarded only to the first year students. Second, third, or fourth year students will not be eligible for selection for fresh slots. Moreover, 30% of slots allotted to the institution will be reserved for eligible SC girl students as per their inter-se merit. In the absence of sufficient number of girl students, the slots may be transferred to eligible boy students as per their inter-se merit.

The benefit of the scheme will not be provided to more than two siblings in a family. The scholarship will be terminated if the student fails to get promoted to the next semester or class. In case a student changes his or her institute or college after getting selected under the scheme, his or her scholarship will be discontinued and he or she will not be eligible for further consideration.