Students Eligible

• SC & ST Welfare Students whose annual Family income is Rs. Two Lakhs or below.
• BC & EBC and Minority Welfare Students who are belongs to rural area family income should be Rs. One Lakh Fifty Thousand or below.
• BC & EBC and Minority Welfare Students who are belongs to Urban area family income should be Rs. Two Lakhs or below.
• Disabled Welfare Students whose parental income is Rs. One lakh or below.
• EBC students who are selected Under Corporate College Admissions Scheme Eligible for Intermediate courses
• Students whose attendance is 75% at the end of each quarter.

Students not Eligible

• Students belonging to the categories other than SC, ST, BC, EBC , Minority and DW(Disabled).
• SC,ST Students whose annual family income is more than Rs. Two Lakhs.
• BC & EBC and Minority Rural area Students Whose annual family income is more than Rs. One Lakh Fifty Thousand.
• BC & EBC and Minority Urban area Students Whose annual family income is more than Rs. Two Lakhs.
• Disabled Welfare Students whose family income is more than Rupees One lakh.
• All Students pursuing the part time courses, online courses.
• Students admitted under Sponsored seats, Management Quota seats.
• Students drawing the stipend more than the scholarship amount in aggregate per annum.
• Students of BC, EBC and DW students studying the Courses offered by open universities, distant mode, category B seats in MBBS, BDS.
• EBC students studying Intermediate or equivalent courses

Central Sector Scholarship Scheme for College and University Students is a centrally-funded merit-cum-means scholarship initiated by the Department of Higher Education of MHRD. It started with the objective to financially assist students of economically underprivileged families. The Central Sector Scholarship scheme disburses scholarships to 82,000 graduate/postgraduate students every year.

The Central Sector Scholarship scheme is given in equal proportion to boys and girls, i.e., 41,000 of the total number of scholarships are reserved for boys and the other 41,000 are for girl candidates. The selected students receive an annual scholarship amount of up to INR 20,000 so that they could meet their day-to-day expenses while pursuing higher studies.

A detailed description of this scholarship scheme can be found below. Read the article to know about scholarship objective, key dates, eligibility conditions, awards and application process.

An Overview

Objective

Offered to meritorious students, the Central Sector Scholarship Scheme for College and University Students aims to provide monetary support to students from low-income group families. The fund provided under this scholarship helps the candidate to meet his/her daily expenses incurred while pursuing graduate or postgraduate studies in general or professional courses.

Awards

Central Sector Scholarship awards a total of 82,000 scholarships every year. 50% of the scholarship is earmarked for girl candidates and the remaining 50% is for boy candidates. All these scholarships are distributed to the State Education Boards on the basis of the population of 18-25 years age group in the respective State after segregating the share of CBSE and ICSE.

Furthermore, the scholarships allotted to State Education Boards are divided in the ratio of 3:2:1 among the pass-outs of Science, Commerce and Arts, respectively. The selected students receive the scholarship amount directly into their account through Direct Benefits Transfer (DBT) mode. Given below is the detail of rewards given under the Central Sector Scholarship scheme.

Award Money of Central Sector Scholarship Scheme

1. Graduation

• An annual scholarship amount of INR 10,000 for 1st three years of graduation.
• In case of a 5-year integrated course (professional studies), INR 20,000 per year is given to students during the 4th and 5th years of study.
• If the students are pursuing technical courses such as B.Tech., B.Engg., the scholarship is given up to graduation level.

2. Postgraduation

• An amount of INR 20,000 is provided to students studying at postgraduation level.

Key Dates

This merit-cum-means scholarship is generally announced every year in the month of July and its deadline falls in the last week of October. The application period varies from year to year and is subject to change at the discretion of the scholarship provider. For the academic session 2022-23, the last date to apply for the scholarship was 17 January 2023.

Eligibility Criteria

This scheme is meant for those bright students who belong to economically disadvantaged families. While applying for this merit-cum-means scholarship, the applicants must make sure that they are above the 80th percentile of successful students in the relevant stream in the class 12 board exam. Find below more details about the eligibility criteria needed to apply for the scholarship.

• The applicants must be in the top 20th percentile merit list of class 12 results of concerned boards (SEB/CBSE/ICSE).
• The candidates must be pursuing regular courses of graduation/postgraduation/professional studies from colleges/universities recognised by AICTE, UGC, MCI, DCI or other regulatory bodies.
• The candidates belonging to reserved categories of SC, ST, OBC and PWD will get a reservation of 15%, 7.5%, 27% and 5%, respectively.
• The candidates’ annual family income must not exceed INR 8 Lakh.
• The applicants must not be availing of any other scholarship benefits.
• Also, those students who are pursuing Diploma courses are not eligible for this merit-cum-means scholarship.
If you wish to know about more Centrally-funded scholarships, then read 'UGC Scholarship – All You Need to Know'.

Key Documents

There are a few necessary documents that the applicants must keep with them ready at the time of the application process. The list of the required documents for the Central Sector Scholarship Scheme for College and University Students is given below.

• Bank passbook issued in the name of the applicant for filling bank details
• Aadhaar card number (In case Aadhaar is not yet assigned, alternatives like Aadhaar enrolment ID slip, voter ID card, driving license, PAN, passport etc.)
• Income certificate issued by the competent authority
• Caste certificate, if applicable
• Disability certificate, if applicable
• Class 12 mark sheet

Application Process

To make the application process easy and accessible for applicants, MHRD allows students to fill out the scholarship application form online through the government scholarship portal, the National Scholarship Portal (NSP). Follow the steps given below to fill out the Central Sector Scholarship application form.