Haryana State Merit Scholarship Scheme

What is the Haryana State Merit Scholarship Scheme?

The Haryana State Merit Scholarship Scheme is a merit-cum-poverty scholarship awarded by the Government of Haryana through the Department of Higher Education, administered by the Directorate of Higher Education at Panchkula. The scheme's own founding document describes its purpose plainly: brilliant students from economically backward families are often unable to pursue higher study for want of money, and the state formulated the award so that "no really brilliant student is prevented on grounds of poverty alone from pursuing an academic career".

The scheme is formally titled Government Merit Scholarships in Colleges for General University Education, and it covers degree, postgraduate and doctorate courses. On the state's centralised scholarship portal it appears as State Merit Scholarship To UG/PG Students, one of eight schemes of the Directorate of Higher Education listed there.

The scholarship is classified into open and rural-area awards, separately for boys and girls:

• Open Merit Scholarships for postgraduate courses: M.A., M.Sc., M.Com. and Ph.D: common for boys and girls.
• Open Merit Scholarships for boys and girls for degree courses.
• Rural Area Merit Scholarships for boys and girls for degree courses.
• Rural Area Merit Scholarships for boys and girls at the preparatory and higher secondary level.

"Rural area" in the scheme means villages falling within the limits of panchayats established under Haryana law, and specifically excludes small towns, notified areas, municipal committees, cantonment boards, corporations and any other area declared urban by the awarding authority.

How much does the Haryana State Merit Scholarship pay?

The scheme document records rates revised under S.N.E. (Non-Plan) 2007-08, notified vide U.O. No. 60/76/2007-2 F.D. II/2848 dated 4 February 2008. Those revised rates are the ones still reproduced in the scheme document hosted on the Har-Chhatravratti portal:

The stipend is paid monthly across the academic year, so a degree-level awardee draws Rs 450 a month and an M.Phil or Ph.D scholar draws Rs 900 a month. Tenure is fixed by course: a minimum of three academic years for B.A., B.Sc., B.Com. and B.Sc. Home Science including honours courses, a maximum of two academic years for M.A., M.Sc., M.Com. and M.Sc. Home Science, and one academic year for a B.T. or B.Ed course. One scholarship is tenable at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi for the full duration of an M.Phil or Ph.D, a minimum of three years.

The scheme also provides that the distribution of awards is reviewed each year against the number of examinees, with a corresponding increase or decrease in numbers, without changing the ceiling fixed between open and rural-area quotas.

Who is eligible for the Haryana State Merit Scholarship?

A student qualifies if all of these hold:

• The student is a citizen of India and domiciled in Haryana. Parents or guardians must be Indian citizens.
• The student has passed the qualifying examination from a recognised examining body. The scheme names Panjab University and Kurukshetra University among them, and is enrolled in a recognised higher education institution.
• The student secured at least Second Division in the qualifying examination.
• The student stands within the sanctioned merit quota for the relevant level and for the open or rural-area category.
• The institution is a government, aided or self-financing college listed on the Har-Chhatravratti portal. The portal's eligibility table records "Govt/Aided/SFC" for this scheme.
• The student holds a valid Parivar Pehchan Patra.

A student is not eligible, and cannot apply, if:

• The student is already receiving another merit or merit-cum-poverty scholarship. Holding two merit awards at the same time is not permitted, though need-based assistance from specified welfare boards is treated separately.
• The student is not domiciled in Haryana.
• The student obtained below Second Division in the qualifying examination.
• The student does not have a Parivar Pehchan Patra, since the portal is built around it.
• The student is studying in an institution not listed on the Har-Chhatravratti portal's list of institutes.

The award, once granted, is cancelled if the student supplied false information, fails to pass the annual examination, or is found guilty of a disciplinary breach. Amounts already drawn can be recovered in such cases.

How to apply for the Haryana State Merit Scholarship

1. Open the Har-Chhatravratti portal at harchhatravratti.highereduhry.ac.in and click the Registration link. Existing users click Login instead.
2. Enter your Parivar Pehchan Patra (Family ID). The portal displays the list of family members; select your own name and click Generate OTP.
3. Enter the OTP received on the registered mobile number and click Verify OTP.
4. Check the auto-filled registration details that appear after verification and correct anything that is wrong.
5. Select your department and college, create a password, and click Register.
6. Log in with the new user ID and password to open the scholarship list.
7. Provide the required details — course, roll number, eligibility and marks, and upload the documents.
8. Click Apply to save and submit the application, and note the application number for tracking.

Applications pass through a three-tier verification: institute, university or nodal body, and head office: before disbursal. That is the design the department highlights on the portal, and it is why a scholarship application usually takes several weeks to move.

What documents are required?

How to check the application status and get the money

Use the Track Application link on harchhatravratti.highereduhry.ac.in with your application details. The portal is integrated with the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) mapper, the National Scholarship Portal, AISHE and the Saral portal, and payments are made by direct benefit transfer into the Aadhaar-seeded bank account.

The single most common failure at the payment stage is an Aadhaar not seeded with the bank account. The portal carries two dedicated instruction sheets for this: "How to Seed Aadhaar with bank account" and "Check Aadhaar Bank Seeding Status in NPCI mapper". Department notices dated 19 March 2026 record that scholarship amounts for the 2022-23, 2023-24 and 2024-25 academic years were returned to the department for a large number of students because of bank account discrepancies or un-updated Aadhaar details. Students in that position should correct their bank and Aadhaar records and follow up through their institution.

Key dates and current status

For the 2025-26 session, the Directorate of Higher Education closed applications for State Merit Scholarship to UG/PG students on 11 February 2026, along with seven of its other schemes on the portal. The window reopens each academic session. Students should track the Latest Notices section of the portal rather than rely on a fixed calendar date, since closing dates have shifted between sessions.

As of the portal's own counters, Har-Chhatravratti carries 14 scholarship schemes of 3 departments, covers 2,830 institutes, has processed over 8.13 lakh applications, created over 6.21 lakh beneficiaries, and disbursed about Rs 1,161 crore.

Grievance redressal

• Register and track a grievance through the Grievance section of harchhatravratti.highereduhry.ac.in
• Help desk email: helpdeskscholarship@highereduhry.ac.in
• Directorate of Higher Education, Panchkula is the administering office for this scheme
• Institution first: because verification starts at the institute level, the college scholarship in-charge is usually the fastest route to clear a pending or objected application

Applying is free. The Department of Higher Education does not appoint agents, and a student should never share the Parivar Pehchan Patra OTP with anyone.

Common reasons for rejection

Most Haryana State Merit Scholarship applications fail at one of the three verification tiers (institute, university or nodal body, head office) rather than at the online form itself. The reasons that come up repeatedly, and the fix for each:

• Aadhaar not seeded with the bank account in the NPCI mapper. This is the single most common failure, and it is a payment-stage rejection rather than an eligibility one: the application can be approved and still return unpaid. The department's own notices record scholarship amounts for 2022-23, 2023-24 and 2024-25 being sent back for large numbers of students for exactly this reason. Fix: complete Aadhaar seeding with the bank branch before applying, and use the portal's "Check Aadhaar Bank Seeding Status in NPCI mapper" page to confirm it went through, rather than assuming a linked Aadhaar is automatically seeded.

• Marks below Second Division in the qualifying examination. The scheme sets Second Division as the floor; a student who cleared the exam but landed in Third Division does not qualify, regardless of financial need. There is no fix once the result is out beyond re-appearing in a later exam and applying in a subsequent session.

• Already holding another merit or merit-cum-poverty scholarship. The scheme document is explicit that a student cannot draw two merit awards at the same time. An application is rejected, or an award already given is cancelled, if this overlap is found. Fix: check what scholarship, if any, is already running before applying, and note that need-based welfare-board assistance is treated separately from merit scholarships, so it does not automatically disqualify.

• Studying in an institution not listed on the Har-Chhatravratti portal. The portal's eligibility table restricts this scheme to Govt/Aided/SFC institutions that appear in its own institute list of 2,830 colleges. A student at an institution outside that list cannot be verified at the institute tier and the application stalls there. Fix: confirm the college's listing on the portal before applying, ideally through the college's own scholarship in-charge.

• Missing or invalid Parivar Pehchan Patra. Registration on the portal starts with the PPP family ID, and the scheme document lists it as a mandatory eligibility document. An application without a valid PPP, or one where the applicant's name does not match the PPP family record, gets stuck at registration or is rejected at the institute check. Fix: verify the PPP details and family member listing are correct before starting registration.

• False information or a disciplinary finding against the student. The scheme document states the award is cancelled, and amounts already disbursed can be recovered, if a student is found to have supplied false information, failed the annual examination, or been held guilty of a disciplinary breach at the institution. This is a cancellation risk after an award is made, not only a rejection risk at application stage.

• Documents not matching the merit or domicile claim. Class 10 and 12 certificates, the Haryana domicile certificate and the income certificate must be internally consistent, since these are what the institute and university tiers check the merit and rural-area or open-category claim against. A mismatch between the domicile certificate and the address used at registration, or between the marksheet and the division claimed, is a common cause of an application being held or objected to at the institute tier.

Because verification is layered, an applicant whose form is rejected or stuck should first raise it with the college's scholarship in-charge, since that is where institute-level verification happens, before escalating through the Grievance section of harchhatravratti.highereduhry.ac.in or the help desk at helpdeskscholarship@highereduhry.ac.in.