MahaDBT, CAP Integration: Maharashtra students to get scholarship approvals at admission, no renewals needed

Maha DBT Scholarship Reforms: The Maharashtra government is planning to integrate its scholarship and freeship disbursal system, managed through the MahaDBT portal, with the centralised admission process (CAP) for professional courses, eliminating the need for students to separately apply for educational aid. The CAP is managed by the Maharashtra CET Cell.

If implemented, the move will see the eligible students approved for scholarships right at the time of admission. They will also no longer have to renew their application every year, and will be required to submit only the marksheets and attendance record of the previous academic year.

The decision will help students pursuing professional courses – including engineering, medicine, pharmacy, management, law and teacher training – avoid the hassle of the application process.

It was announced by the state higher and technical education minister Chandrakant Patil on Wednesday. “As the students’ documents are already verified at the time of admission, there’s no need to have them go through the entire process again. We could simply transfer the data to the Information Technology (IT) department [which runs the scholarship portal ‘MahaDBT’]. We would reimburse the colleges for fee waivers by the month of August,” said Patil.

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MahaDBT Scholarship: New system from next year

The state runs a number of scholarship and fee waiver programmes for students from disadvantaged groups such as scheduled caste (SC), scheduled tribe (ST), other backward class (OBC), economically weaker section (EWS), socially and economically backward class (SEBC), minorities and women, with around 70-80% students availing some form of assistance from the state. Around Rs 8,000 crore is spent annually over these schemes, through various departments.

The beneficiaries need to apply on the MahaDBT portal after enrolling in a programme. The colleges are required to collect only the part of the fee not reimbursed by the state at the time of admission.

However, many students have complained about the institutes demanding the full fee amount at the enrollment stage . The colleges, on their part, have blamed the state for delaying the reimbursements. Recently colleges in Telangana have threatened to close all the institutes indefinitely over fee reimbursement dues.

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A government official said that the integration will be done for some of the courses from the next academic year with the entire gamut of courses to be brought under the new system by 2027-28.

Patil also suggested that the colleges could be allowed to recover the reimbursement amount through government-guaranteed loans, with the state footing the interest amount. He also informed that the chief minister Devendra Fadnavis has changed the account head for clearing the dues to the colleges. The higher and technical education department has already paid its dues, said an official.

The government is also considering putting a curb on ‘additional charges’ levied by the professional colleges by including those fee components in the umbrella ‘tuition fee’ amount, which is decided by the state Fee Regulating Authority (FRA) . “But this would also entail the state paying a higher sum towards fee reimbursements. Hence, it’s yet to be finalised,” said Patil.