Monthly Stipend to Scheduled Caste Students in Classes I to VIII

What is the monthly stipend for Scheduled Caste students in classes I to VIII?

Monthly Stipend to Scheduled Caste Students in Classes I to VIII is a Haryana state scheme of the Directorate of Elementary Education that pays a fixed sum every month, for 12 months of the year, to every Scheduled Caste boy and girl studying in classes I to VIII in a Haryana government school. The purpose stated in the department's own scheme document is reducing the drop-out rate at the elementary stage, which is why the stipend is tied to continued attendance rather than to marks.

The scheme is listed on the Haryana State Direct Benefit Transfer portal as "Monthly stipend to all Scheduled Caste Student in Classes 1 to VIII" under the Department of Elementary Education, one of ten DBT-onboarded schemes of that department.

This stipend sits alongside, and is separate from, the department's Cash Award Scheme for Scheduled Caste students, which pays a one-time yearly amount for bags, uniform and stationery. An eligible student receives both.

How much is the SC monthly stipend?

The Directorate's published scheme statement sets four rates:

At the top rate, an SC girl in classes VI to VIII receives Rs 2,400 in a year. An SC boy in classes I to V receives Rs 1,200 in a year. The higher rate for girls and for the upper primary stage is deliberate: drop-out risk in Haryana rises sharply for girls after class V, and the scheme puts more money exactly where the risk is highest.

These are the rates published in the Directorate's own scheme document. Rates of this kind are revised administratively from time to time, so confirm the current figure with the school head rather than assuming.

Who is eligible for the SC monthly stipend?

A student is eligible if:

• The student belongs to a Scheduled Caste notified for Haryana and has submitted a caste certificate from a competent authority to the school.
• The student is on the rolls of a Haryana government school.
• The student is studying in classes I to VIII.
• The student's attendance is maintained; see the attendance rule below.

A student is not eligible if:

• The student is not from a Scheduled Caste. BC-A and BPL students are covered by two separate stipend schemes of the same department at their own rates.
• The student studies in a private unaided school.
• The student is in class IX or above. The elementary scheme stops at class VIII; secondary classes are covered by separate School Education schemes.
• The student is already drawing the same benefit under another category. The state government's instructions on these welfare schemes are explicit that a student shall be eligible under only one category, so an SC student from a BPL family cannot draw both the SC and the BPL stipend.
• The student has left the school or is not on the current enrolment statement.

What documents are required?

How to apply for the SC monthly stipend

The scheme has no citizen-facing online form. It works off the school's enrolment register. The steps for a parent are:

1. Submit the Scheduled Caste certificate to the school and confirm that the student's category is recorded as SC in the school register and in the student MIS record. A wrong category entry is the single most common reason a stipend never starts.
2. Open a bank account in the student's name. Departmental instructions put this responsibility on the school head together with the bank officer of the branch attached to the school, and direct that the account be in the child's name with a parent or guardian operating it, preferably the mother. Carry the student's Aadhaar and the parent's Aadhaar.
3. Give the account number and IFSC to the class teacher, and have the account Aadhaar-seeded at the bank.
4. Confirm the student is on the school's requirement statement sent to the Block Elementary Education Officer and District Elementary Education Officer.
5. Maintain attendance above 50 per cent, because the release of the next quarterly instalment depends on it.
6. Check the passbook each quarter and raise any gap with the class teacher immediately rather than at the end of the year.

How the stipend is paid and when

Haryana's instructions for these school welfare schemes describe a clear chain that has not changed in substance:

• The Directorate transfers a lump sum to school accounts through the head office of the bank, on the basis of district-wise requirement received from district officers.
• The school account can only transfer money onward to student accounts. No one can withdraw from it, which is the safeguard the department built in.
• Amounts are worked out from enrolment and attendance reported by the school in-charge.
• Money is released to students in quarterly instalments, with the next instalment released only after the teacher confirms the attendance condition.
• Bank branches are attached to schools so that four or five schools at most share a branch, and account opening is organised at a fixed date by the branch officer, the sarpanch or village head and the school head together.

The 50 per cent attendance rule, explained

Departmental instructions state that before the release of the next quarterly instalment, the school teacher shall see that the money is not released in respect of those children whose attendance falls below 50 per cent.

Two practical points follow. First, the test is applied quarter by quarter, so a child who misses a quarter through illness does not lose the whole year's stipend; attendance in the following quarter restores the payment. Second, the check is made by the teacher inside the school, so a parent who believes attendance was wrongly recorded should raise it with the class teacher and school head while the register can still be corrected, not months later.

Why an SC stipend payment stops

• Attendance below 50 per cent in the quarter just ended.
• No bank account in the student's name, or an account that has gone dormant because it was never used.
• Aadhaar not seeded with the account, so the DBT credit fails.
• Name mismatch between the school register, Aadhaar and the bank record.
• Caste category wrongly recorded in the school register or MIS.
• Student transferred to another school mid-session and dropped from the old school's statement before appearing on the new one.
• Duplicate claim under a second category, for example both SC and BPL, which the one-category rule blocks.

Key dates

There is no last date for a citizen to apply, because there is no citizen application. What matters is the school year. Historically the department has asked district officers to have student accounts opened by mid-April, school-wise requirements assessed and intimated by the end of April, and funds transferred to school accounts in May, with releases to students then following quarterly. A parent's practical deadline is therefore to have the caste certificate, the bank account and the Aadhaar seeding done before the session opens.

Where to complain

• Class teacher and school head — where almost every defect actually sits.
• Block Elementary Education Officer (BEEO) for the block.
• District Elementary Education Officer (DEEO) for the district.
• Directorate of Elementary Education, Haryana, Panchkula, contactable through harprathmik.gov.in.
• CM Window, Haryana's central grievance platform, for unresolved cases.
• Antyodaya SARAL helpline 1800-2000-023, 7 am to 9 pm Monday to Saturday.

No fee is payable to anyone for this stipend, and no school or agent may charge for adding a student's name.

How to check your application status

There is no citizen login and no application number for this stipend, so status checking works differently from a portal-based scheme. Since payment is enrolment-driven and released through the school, checking status means confirming three separate things: that the school has recorded the student correctly, that the money has left the school account, and that it has actually landed in the student's bank account.

Step 1: Ask the class teacher whether the student is on the current requirement statement. This is the single most useful check, because the requirement statement sent to the Block Elementary Education Officer each year is what decides whether a student's name is included at all. A parent can ask the class teacher directly, at any point in the school year, whether the child's name appears on this list under the SC category.

Step 2: Check the student's bank passbook or linked mobile number for a DBT credit each quarter. Because the school account can only push money onward to student accounts, a credit will show as a transfer from the school's bank branch. If a quarter has passed with no attendance issue and no credit has appeared in the passbook, that is the signal to escalate, not to wait for the next quarter.

Step 3: Ask the school head or the Block Elementary Education Officer (BEEO) for the district's disbursal status. The Directorate releases funds to school accounts district-wise, so the school head or BEEO office will know whether the district's funds for the quarter have been received from Panchkula, even before individual student transfers are complete. This step is useful when many students at the same school have not been paid, which usually points to a district-level delay rather than an individual record problem.

Step 4: Use the Antyodaya SARAL portal or helpline for a formal status query if the school cannot explain a missing payment. SARAL is Haryana's common citizen-facing tracking system for state welfare payments, reachable through the 1800-2000-023 helpline between 7 am and 9 pm, Monday to Saturday. Because this stipend has no separate online application, SARAL cannot show an "application status" screen the way a portal-based scholarship would; its role here is to log and track a grievance about a specific missing payment once the school-level check has been done.

Step 5: Escalate to the District Elementary Education Officer (DEEO) or the CM Window only if the block-level answer does not resolve the gap. These are the same escalation points used for complaints, but they also serve to confirm status when the school and BEEO are unable to say why a payment has not reached a particular student.

A practical rule for parents: check the passbook every quarter rather than waiting until the end of the academic year, because attendance and enrolment records are corrected far more easily while the school year is still running than after it has closed.