New Delhi: The number of Scheduled Caste students who received post-matric scholarships fell to 36.07 lakh in 2025-26 against a target of 76.55 lakh—an achievement of under 50 percent—according to a parliamentary committee report tabled on Wednesday.
The Standing Committee on Social Justice and Empowerment, in its report on the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment’s Demands for Grants for 2026-27, flagged persistent underperformance across several scholarship and educational support schemes meant for SC, Other Backward Classes (OBC) and other marginalised students.
Post-matric scholarship
The Post-Matric Scholarship for Scheduled Castes, which disburses funds directly to Aadhaar-linked bank accounts, covered 47.38 lakh students in 2023-24 and 48.04 lakh in 2024-25. That number dropped to 36.07 lakh in 2025-26 even as the target was raised to 76.55 lakh.
The scheme has a family income ceiling of Rs 2.5 lakh per annum. The Ministry has proposed raising this to Rs 4.5 lakh in the next Finance Commission cycle, beginning 2026-27.
A long-standing problem is the timing of disbursement. Scholarship portals in most states open in June-July and close in November-December. Verification and processing by states takes another two months, which means most payments reach students in February and March—at the end of the academic year. The committee noted it has repeatedly recommended that scholarships be disbursed within the same academic year. The ministry told the panel that it is revising guidelines to ensure payments are made in the first four to five months of the year for renewal cases.
The committee noted a decline in the number of beneficiaries in Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Odisha, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal between 2022-23 and 2024-25.
Fellowship cap unchanged for 20 years
The National Fellowship for SC students, which funds doctoral research, has had a cap of 2,000 fellowships since the scheme was launched in 2005-06. Two decades have gone by, but the cap has not been revised.
The committee noted that expenditure under the scheme exceeded budget estimates in 2023-24 and 2024-25, indicating healthy demand. It asked the ministry to examine application data from the last three years and consider increasing the number of fellowships. The ministry did not provide a commitment to do so.
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Free coaching nearly dysfunctional
The Free Coaching Scheme for SC and OBC students, which funds preparation for competitive examinations and entrance tests for professional institutions, reached 223 students in 2023-24 against a target of 3,500. In 2024-25, it reached 2,136. In 2025-26, the figure stood at 431.
Expenditure has followed a similar pattern. Against a budget estimate of Rs 47 crore in 2023-24, only Rs 7.76 crore was spent. The budget was cut to Rs 35 crore in 2024-25, of which Rs 17.09 crore was spent. It was cut again to Rs 20 crore in 2025-26, with only Rs 7.11 crore spent.
The ministry attributed the poor performance to limited participation by central universities and delays in proposals. The committee said it was not satisfied with this explanation.
The income ceiling for the scheme — Rs 8 lakh per annum — has not been revised. The committee noted this may be preventing eligible students from applying, and asked the ministry to re-examine the eligibility criteria.
Top Class Education & overseas scholarships
Under the Top Class Education scheme which covers SC students admitted to 274 premier institutions including IITs, IIMs, and AIIMS, the government has decided not to fix a target from 2026-27 onwards, offering scholarships to all eligible students subject to budget availability. The committee noted the budget for 2026-27 is Rs 120 crore, while actual expenditure in 2024-25 was Rs 103.26 crore, leaving little room to absorb additional applicants. The family income ceiling of Rs 8 lakh, set in 2020-21, has not been revised.
The government this year doubled the number of slots under the National Overseas Scholarship for SC students from 125 to 250, following a recommendation by the same committee last year. However, the budget estimate for 2026-27 has been kept at the same level as 2025-26, when there were 125 slots. The committee said it could not understand how 250 scholarships would be funded on a budget designed for 125.
The committee also noted that slots reserved for Denotified, Nomadic and Semi-Nomadic Tribes, landless agricultural labourers, and traditional artisans under the overseas scholarship scheme have remained unutilised for years.
(Edited by Nardeep Dahiya)
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