The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment (MoSJE) implements Centrally Sponsored ‘Post-Matric Scholarship Scheme for Scheduled Caste (SC) students through the State Governments/UTs Administrations. Under this Scheme, scholarship is released directly into the Aadhaar Seeded Bank Account of the beneficiaries through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) mode. Under the above Scheme, the release of Central share of scholarship is contingent upon State Governments/UTs Administrations to share the State/UT paid data to the National Scholarship Portal. The aforementioned scheme is open-ended and demand driven for all the eligible students of all the recognized institutions across India.

The State/UT-wise details of the number of beneficiaries and amount sanctioned & disbursed including State of Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Himanchal Pradesh, Gujarat and Chhattisgarh which were released as Central Share during the Last Five F.Y.s is attached at Annexure. The details pertaining to State of Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Himanchal Pradesh and Gujarat also includes beneficiaries from all the districts of State of Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Himanchal Pradesh and Gujarat whose State/UT share paid data has been pushed to Central Portal for release of central share.

For the Post Matric Scholarship for SC students, Scheme applications are invited through designated online portal. States/UTs being the implementing agency defines the major modalities for inviting applications, further processing, verification and other implementation aspects with suitable mechanisms at the level of State/UT.

A major review of the functioning of the digital scholarship portals, Aadhaar-based verification and DBT was undertaken twice by Committee of Secretaries (CoS) in 2016 and 2023. Based on the recommendations of the CoS, Aadhaar-based measures have been implemented to strengthen the integrity and seamless delivery of benefits on the National Scholarship Portal (NSP).

In addition, the NSP has implemented the following key features:

• One Time Registration (OTR): To track scholarship disbursements throughout the academic lifecycle of a student and to register using biometric authentication.

• Global de-duplication: Introduced for assisting onboarded Ministries/ Departments/ States in identifying duplicate applications across onboarded schemes on de-duplication services.

• APB based disbursement: To introduce Aadhar based scholarship disbursement.

The steps taken by Government to ensure timely distribution of scholarships, strengthen institutional accountability and increase transparency in scheme implementation are as below:

Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) to the eligible applicants through Aadhaar Based Payment System (Aadhaar Payment Bridge):

• As per revised scheme guidelines, the entire scholarship amount - both from the State and Central Government -including the academic allowance and disability allowance, if any, will be paid directly into the account of the students through DBT preferably through an Aadhaar Based Payment System (Aadhaar Payment Bridge).

• Aadhaar based payment is being done for efficient, accurate and transparent delivery of benefits. This Aadhaar Based Payment System has eradicated fraudulent activities, fake beneficiaries and pendency due to account-based payment.