Vikramaditya Yojana (Vikramaditya Free Education Scheme)

What is Vikramaditya Yojana?

Vikramaditya Yojana, also written as the Vikramaditya Free Education Scheme and known locally as Vikramaditya Nishulk Shiksha Yojana, is a scholarship run by the Higher Education Department of the Government of Madhya Pradesh. The scheme exists to remove the tuition-fee barrier for poor students of the general (unreserved) category who go on to a degree course after Class 12.

Most state scholarship money in India is routed through caste-based post-matric schemes. Vikramaditya Yojana fills the gap those schemes leave: a general-category student from a family living on Rs 54,000 a year has no post-matric scholarship of their own. According to material published on the MP Scholarship Portal, the scheme reimburses admission and tuition fees for a regular undergraduate course at a government or government-aided institution in Madhya Pradesh, subject to a ceiling of Rs 2,500 per year.

Vikramaditya Yojana is delivered entirely through the MP Scholarship Portal 2.0 at hescholarship.mp.gov.in, the same portal that carries Gaon Ki Beti Yojana, Pratibha Kiran Yojana, Awas Sahayata and the post-matric scholarships for SC, ST and OBC students. Payment is by Direct Benefit Transfer into the student's own Aadhaar-seeded bank account.

Key features

• State-funded scholarship, 100% borne by the Government of Madhya Pradesh.
• Aimed at the general category only, this is unusual and is the whole point of the scheme.
• Benefit is a fee reimbursement, not a monthly stipend.
• Applied for online only, free of charge, once per academic year.
• Payment is by DBT, so an Aadhaar-seeded bank account in the student's own name is essential.

Who is eligible for Vikramaditya Yojana?

You can claim Vikramaditya Yojana if all of the following are true:

• You are a permanent resident of Madhya Pradesh and can produce a domicile or residence certificate.
• You belong to the general (unreserved) category.
• You scored 60% or more in the Class 12 board examination.
• Your annual family income is Rs 54,000 or less, evidenced by a current income certificate.
• You have taken admission to a regular undergraduate course in a government or government-aided institution in the state.
• You have a Samagra ID, an Aadhaar number and a bank account in your own name.

You are not eligible and cannot apply if:

• You belong to the SC, ST or OBC category, those categories have separate post-matric scholarships and drawing both is barred.
• Your family income is above the notified ceiling. Published summaries cite Rs 54,000 for the graduation benefit and a higher Rs 1,20,000 figure for higher-education variants; the figure printed in the current-year notification is the one that binds.
• You scored below 60% in Class 12.
• You are studying outside Madhya Pradesh, or in a purely private unaided institution that is not covered by the scheme.
• You are enrolled in a correspondence, distance or part-time programme rather than a regular course.
• You are already drawing another scholarship through the MP Scholarship Portal for the same year. The portal itself allows only one scheme benefit.
• You have failed and are repeating the same year of the course.

What documents are required for Vikramaditya Yojana?

Get the income certificate made fresh for the academic year you are applying in. Certificates older than the current financial year are a routine cause of rejection at the college verification stage.

How to apply for Vikramaditya Yojana online

1. Open the MP Scholarship Portal 2.0 at hescholarship.mp.gov.in.
2. Choose Student Registration and enter your Samagra ID. The portal pulls your name, father's name, mother's name, date of birth, gender and category from the Samagra database, so check every field it fills in.
3. Complete e-KYC using your Aadhaar number and the OTP sent to your Aadhaar-linked mobile number. Note the applicant ID and password the portal generates.
4. Log in with that applicant ID and select Vikramaditya Yojana from the list of schemes available to you.
5. Fill in the academic section: your college code, branch code, course, year of study, Class 12 board, roll number and percentage. Get the college and branch codes from your college scholarship cell rather than guessing.
6. Enter your bank account number and IFSC code. The account must be in your own name and Aadhaar-seeded.
7. Upload the scanned documents: marksheet, income certificate, domicile, passbook page and photograph: in the file sizes and formats the portal states.
8. Submit the form, then print the acknowledgement carrying your application number.
9. Hand the printed application and a photocopy set to your college scholarship cell so the institution can verify and forward it. An application the college never verifies is never sanctioned, however perfect the form.

Is there an offline route for Vikramaditya Yojana?

Vikramaditya Yojana has no paper application form. The only route is the online form on hescholarship.mp.gov.in. What students in villages and small towns usually do instead is get assisted help:

• The college scholarship cell or nodal officer, which is the correct first stop and does not charge anything.
• A Common Service Centre (CSC) or MPOnline kiosk, which may charge its own notified service fee for typing and scanning, not for the scholarship itself.
• The district Higher Education office for problems the college cannot solve.

How much benefit does Vikramaditya Yojana pay, and when?

Vikramaditya Yojana reimburses admission and tuition fees up to Rs 2,500 per academic year. Because it is a reimbursement, a student whose college charges less than Rs 2,500 receives only what was actually charged.

Payment reaches the student by Direct Benefit Transfer after three things happen in order: the student submits the form, the college verifies and forwards it, and the department passes the sanction. In practice the money arrives some months after the application window closes, and it arrives in a single credit rather than monthly instalments. Vikramaditya Yojana does not renew itself — a student in a three-year degree applies three times.

When do Vikramaditya Yojana applications open?

Vikramaditya Yojana follows the academic calendar. The MP Scholarship Portal usually opens registration for the new session around mid-year once Class 12 results and college admissions are done, and closes it after a stated last date, with the college verification deadline a few weeks later. Dates shift every year and are announced only as notices on hescholarship.mp.gov.in, so treat any date you read on a private website as unofficial and check the portal notice board before you plan around it.

Two dates matter, not one. The student submission last date and the institution verification last date are different, and the second one is where most applications die. Submit early enough that your college still has working days left to verify.

How to check Vikramaditya Yojana application and payment status

1. Go to hescholarship.mp.gov.in and log in with your applicant ID and password.
2. Open the application status option and read the stage shown: submitted, pending at institute, verified, sanctioned, or paid.
3. If it says pending at institute, the problem is at your college, not the department, go to the scholarship cell in person.
4. If it says sanctioned but not paid, check your bank account details and Aadhaar seeding at your bank branch.

Why Vikramaditya Yojana applications get rejected

• Wrong college code or branch code, so the form never reaches the right institution's verification queue.
• Income certificate above the ceiling, or one issued in an earlier financial year.
• Class 12 percentage below 60%, including cases where a supplementary result pulled the aggregate down.
• Category mismatch between the Samagra record and the certificate uploaded.
• Bank account not Aadhaar-seeded, or an account in a parent's name.
• Duplicate scholarship, the portal detects a second scheme claimed for the same year and rejects one.
• College did not verify in time, the commonest failure of all.

Most of these are fixable. If the portal is still open, correct the field and resubmit through your college. If it has closed, the department's district office is the only route, and it works only when the error was clerical.

Where to complain about a Vikramaditya Yojana problem

• College scholarship cell, first stop for verification and code problems.
• Higher Education Department scholarship email: heschlor@mp.gov.in, the address listed on the MP Scholarship Portal for higher-education scholarship queries.
• District Higher Education / Nodal Officer, for sanction and payment disputes the college cannot resolve.
• CM Helpline 181, the Madhya Pradesh government's general grievance line, for a formal complaint if the department does not respond.

Vikramaditya Yojana is free to apply for. No official will ask for your portal password or the OTP sent to your Aadhaar-linked mobile number, and no one can charge a commission on a scholarship sanction.