Merit Based Scholarship Scheme for Dhangar Students

What is the Merit Based Scholarship Scheme for Dhangar Students?

Merit Based Scholarship Scheme for Dhangar Students is a scheme of the Directorate of Social Welfare, Government of Goa, that rewards academic performance among students of the Dhangar community. According to the scheme details published on the Chief Minister Scholarship Portal, the scheme exists to motivate students by providing merit-based awards and financial incentives to high-performing students who are economically weak.

The scheme has two distinct tracks that are frequently confused:

• A rank-holder award of Rs 20,000 for the top 5 rank holders in the SSC examination and in each HSSC stream, carrying no income ceiling.
• A merit award graded by percentage, from Rs 5,000 to Rs 15,000, which applies an income ceiling of Rs 2,00,000 a year.

Applications are accepted online and the scheme is administered through the Chief Minister Scholarship Portal, cmscholarship.goa.gov.in, the single portal Goa uses for its Social Welfare and education scholarships.

How much does the Dhangar merit scholarship pay?

Rank-holder awards, Rs 20,000 each

Rank-holder awardees also receive a certificate of appreciation and are felicitated in a public ceremony.

Merit awards by percentage slab

Mode of disbursement: the amount of the financial award is disbursed through electronic bank transfer to the student's account, which is why bank account details of the student are part of the mandatory document list.

Who is eligible for the Dhangar merit scholarship?

For the rank-holder category, you can apply if:

• You belong to the Dhangar community.
• You are among the top 5 rank holders in your respective examination, SSC or one of the four HSSC streams.
• Your income is irrelevant — this track has no income ceiling restrictions.

For the merit-award category, you can apply if:

• You belong to the Dhangar community.
• Your annual family income is less than Rs 2,00,000.
• You have achieved the minimum qualifying percentage for one of the benefit slabs, that is at least 50 per cent.

You are not eligible if:

• You do not belong to the Dhangar community, or cannot produce an attested social status certificate to that effect. Students of other communities cannot apply under this particular scheme and should look at the other scholarship schemes listed on the same portal.
• You scored below 50 per cent and are not among the top 5 rank holders, in which case neither track applies.
• Your family income is Rs 2,00,000 or more and you are not a top-5 rank holder.
• You cannot establish residence in Goa or Goan origin.

What documents are required?

Attestation matters. The social status certificate and the educational qualification certificates are both listed as attested copies, and uploading an unattested scan is a routine cause of the school sending an application back.

How to apply for the Dhangar merit scholarship online

Registration (one time)

1. Visit the Chief Minister Scholarship Portal at cmscholarship.goa.gov.in.
2. Click Register at the top right corner of the landing page.
3. On the registration page, under the Student Registration section, click Click Here.
4. Fill the Student Registration Form: student's name, gender, category, date of birth in DD-MM-YYYY format, Aadhaar number, house number, waddo or street, village panchayat or municipality, district, taluka, assembly constituency, city, town or village, PIN code, mobile number and email ID.
5. Create a password of 8 to 15 characters, confirm it, click Register and then Yes on the confirmation pop-up.

Application

1. Return to cmscholarship.goa.gov.in and click Login at the top right.
2. Enter your username, password and the captcha code, and click Login.
3. On logging in, the portal shows the list of schemes you are eligible for based on the category you selected. Click Merit Based Scholarship Scheme for Dhangar Students.
4. In the Apply section of the side navigation bar, click Fresh Application.
5. Fill in every mandatory field of the application form and upload the required documents in the specified format and size.
6. Click Submit.

What happens after you submit

1. Your school or institution verifies the application and submits it to the Directorate of Social Welfare for further scrutiny.
2. If there is a problem with the form or with any uploaded document, the school or institution can send the application back to you for correction and resubmission.
3. Once scrutiny at the Directorate is complete and the award is sanctioned, the amount is transferred electronically to the student's bank account.

Because verification passes through the school, a student who submits and then stops checking often misses the send-back. Log in periodically until the status moves past institutional verification.

How to track your Dhangar scholarship application

1. In the side navigation bar of the portal, click Track Application.
2. On the next page, enter your Aadhaar number and date of birth.
3. Click Submit to see the current stage of your application.

The portal also publishes a user guide at cmscholarship.goa.gov.in/UserGuid.aspx that walks through registration, application and tracking with screenshots.

Why applications get rejected or sent back

• Social status certificate missing or not attested, so Dhangar community status is not established.
• Income certificate absent in a merit-award application. Rank holders are exempt from the income test, but merit-slab applicants are not.
• Mark sheet percentage does not match the slab claimed, or the mark sheet is uploaded unattested.
• Documents uploaded in the wrong format or above the size limit, which the portal rejects at upload.
• Bank account details wrong or in someone else's name. The transfer is to the student's own account.
• Application not verified by the school in time, because the student submitted close to the closing date.
• Aadhaar or date of birth mismatch between registration and the documents, which also breaks the Track Application lookup.

Key dates

The scheme follows the SSC and HSSC result calendar. Application windows are opened on the Chief Minister Scholarship Portal after the board results are declared, and the operative dates for each academic year are published on the portal itself rather than fixed permanently in the scheme rules. Students should watch cmscholarship.goa.gov.in from the day results are announced, and complete the one-time student registration in advance so that only the application form remains to be filled when the window opens.

Where to get help

Contact details for the Chief Minister Scholarship Portal are published at cmscholarship.goa.gov.in/fcontactus.aspx. Scheme-specific questions on eligibility, the social status certificate and the income ceiling go to the Directorate of Social Welfare, Government of Goa, which administers the scheme. Portal, upload and login problems are handled through the contact page, and the school or institution is the first point of contact for anything at the verification stage.

There is no application fee for this scholarship, and no agent is authorised to charge for filing it on the portal.