The Union Minister of State for Tribal Affairs Shri Durgadas Uikey today informed Rajya Sabha that under the scheme of “National Fellowship and Scholarship for Higher Education of ST students” the total budgetary outlay for FY 2021-22 to FY 2025-26 was ₹735 crore. However, Ministry of Tribal Affairs incurred the expenditure of ₹735 crore till F.Y. 2024-25. Notably, the Ministry has spent five-year budget within four years due to increase in number of scholars under National Scholarship (Top Class) being the open-ended scheme and enhancement of fellowship amount by UGC under National Fellowship. Due to this paucity of funds under the scheme, NFST awardees (Ph.D scholars) faced delay in disbursement of fellowship during current Financial Year 2025-26.

To address the shortfall in funds, the Ministry sought additional allocation of ₹220 crore by moving Supplementary EFC, thereby increasing the total budget outlay to ₹955.00 crore for the five-year period.

The fellowship payment to Ph.D scholars has been disbursed and all dues have been cleared. In some cases, non-disbursement of fellowships is also due to non-submission of continuation certificates and other documents.

Complaints/grievances relating to the scholarship schemes are resolved through CPGRAMS/PG Portal. The average disposal time of CPGRAMS related to scholarship schemes is given in the table below: -

CPGRAMS/PG Portal Report for all scholarship Grievances (including NFST scheme) Period of Report: 01/04/2025 to 23/03/2026
Name	Brought Forward	Received During	Disposed During	Average Disposal Days
Scholarship Schemes	3	825	828	2

 

*****

RN/

(Release ID: 2244951) Visitor Counter : 144