Rani Durgavati and Shankarshah Puraskar Scheme

What is the Rani Durgavati and Shankarshah Puraskar Scheme?

Rani Durgavati and Shankarshah Puraskar Scheme is an award of the Government of Madhya Pradesh that honours Scheduled Tribe and Scheduled Caste students who finish at the top of the state board merit list. It is administered by the Tribal Affairs and Scheduled Caste Welfare Department, the department that also runs the state's post matric scholarships, hostels and Akanksha and Pratibha coaching schemes for tribal students.

The names carry deliberate weight. Rani Durgavati was the Gond queen of Garha-Katanga who died resisting Mughal annexation in 1564, and Raja Shankar Shah was the Gondwana ruler executed by the British in Jabalpur in 1857 for leading a revolt. Madhya Pradesh has built a set of tribal commemorations around both figures, and this award attaches their names to academic achievement by tribal and Scheduled Caste students.

Unlike almost every other scheme in this space, Rani Durgavati and Shankarshah Puraskar Scheme is not need-based and not application-driven. It is a merit recognition. A student does not apply for it and then wait; the department works backwards from the Madhya Pradesh Board of Secondary Education result.

Who is eligible for the Rani Durgavati and Shankarshah award?

A student qualifies when all of these hold:

• The student is a permanent resident of Madhya Pradesh.
• The student belongs to a Scheduled Tribe or Scheduled Caste notified for Madhya Pradesh, with a valid caste certificate.
• The student appeared as a regular candidate of the Madhya Pradesh Board of Secondary Education in the Class 10 or Class 12 examination.
• The student's result places them among the top merit positions notified under the scheme, reported as the top 6 positions in the relevant merit list.

A student is not eligible when:

• The student is outside the SC and ST categories. OBC and general-category toppers are honoured under other state arrangements, not this one.
• The student sat the examination under CBSE, ICSE or another state board rather than MPBSE.
• The student appeared as a private or non-regular candidate, where the scheme's conditions require regular candidature.
• The student's merit position falls outside the notified band, however good the percentage.
• The caste certificate is not from a competent Madhya Pradesh authority, or has expired or is under dispute.

There is no income condition and no application fee. The award is decided purely on the published merit list within the reserved categories.

How much is the Rani Durgavati and Shankarshah award?

Reported award slabs place the first position at Rs 51,000, with the amount stepping down through the ranks; around Rs 40,000 for second, Rs 30,000 for third, and progressively smaller amounts down to about Rs 5,000 at the sixth position in Class 10, with the Class 12 lower ranks reported at slightly higher figures than the corresponding Class 10 ranks.

Two cautions are worth stating. First, award slabs of this kind are revised by cabinet or departmental order from time to time, so a student should confirm the current year's amount from the department's own order rather than from a secondary listing. Second, the amount is a one-time award for that class, not a recurring scholarship: it does not continue into the following academic year.

A student who wins this award can separately hold a post matric scholarship, an Awas Sahayata housing allowance or another departmental benefit, because this is a prize rather than a fee reimbursement and does not create a double-benefit conflict.

How to claim the Rani Durgavati and Shankarshah award

1. Appear as a regular MPBSE candidate in the Class 10 or Class 12 examination, with your Scheduled Tribe or Scheduled Caste status correctly recorded on the board enrolment form. A category wrongly recorded at enrolment is very hard to fix afterwards.
2. Wait for the MPBSE result and merit list. Selection is made from the merit list; there is normally no separate online or offline application form to fill.
3. Respond to the verification call from the school, the District Education Officer or the district Tribal Welfare office when the shortlist is prepared.
4. Submit the verification documents: board mark sheet, caste certificate, residence certificate, Samagra ID, Aadhaar, bank passbook copy and a photograph.
5. Provide a bank account in your own name that is Aadhaar-seeded, so the award can be credited without a transfer failure.
6. Attend the felicitation if the district or the department holds one, and retain the sanction letter or certificate for your records.

Because there is no application to file, the practical work for a qualifying student is entirely at step 1 and step 5: correct category recording at board enrolment, and a working bank account in the student's own name.

How is the award paid?

The sanctioned amount is credited directly into the selected student's bank account after verification, in the same manner as the department's other Aadhaar-seeded transfers. There is no cheque handed over at the counter and no cash component. Where a district holds a felicitation event, the certificate is given at the event while the money moves by transfer.

Why a qualifying student might still not receive the award

• Caste recorded incorrectly on the MPBSE enrolment, so the student does not appear in the department's category-wise merit extraction.
• Caste certificate not produced at verification, or issued by an authority outside Madhya Pradesh.
• Bank account in a parent's name, or not Aadhaar-seeded, causing the transfer to fail.
• Samagra record mismatch in name or date of birth against the mark sheet.
• Verification call missed because the school had an outdated mobile number.
• Merit position outside the notified band for that year.

The remedy for most of these is to contact the district Tribal Welfare office with the mark sheet and the caste certificate as soon as the merit list is published, rather than waiting to be found.

What are the key dates?

The award cycle follows the MP Board result calendar. MPBSE normally declares the Class 10 and Class 12 results together in the second quarter of the calendar year, the merit list is published with the result, and verification and felicitation follow over the following weeks. There is no application deadline because there is no application window, the operative date is the result date.

Where do I get help or complain?

Start with the school principal, who holds the board enrolment record and is usually the first point of contact for verification. Escalate to the District Education Officer and the district office of the Tribal Affairs and Scheduled Caste Welfare Department, and beyond that to the department's directorate, whose contact details are published on tribal.mp.gov.in. A complaint that gets no response can be lodged on the Madhya Pradesh CM Helpline, 181, which issues a tracking number.

No fee is payable at any stage. The award is selected from a published merit list, so nobody can influence the outcome, and any offer to do so for a payment should be reported to the district office.

A note on similarly named schemes

Madhya Pradesh uses the name Rani Durgavati for more than one programme. A separate Rani Durgavati Scheduled Caste / Scheduled Tribe Self Employment Scheme provides business finance and subsidy to SC and ST entrepreneurs, and is administered through district trade and industry offices, not through the education route. There are also women's empowerment awards instituted in Rani Durgavati's name. This guide covers only the student merit award given jointly in the names of Rani Durgavati and Shankar Shah, and applicants should confirm which scheme they are dealing with before submitting documents.