Post Graduate Indira Gandhi Scholarship for Single Girl Child

What is the Post Graduate Indira Gandhi Scholarship for Single Girl Child?

The Post Graduate Indira Gandhi Scholarship for Single Girl Child is a scholarship of the University Grants Commission (UGC) under the Ministry of Education, Government of India. According to the UGC, the scheme was introduced to recognise the norm of a small family and to support the education of a single girl child through postgraduate study, so that families with only a daughter are encouraged to invest in her higher education.

The scholarship provides Rs 36,200 per year for two years, roughly Rs 3,100 per month: disbursed to the student's bank account through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT). It is aimed at a girl who is the only girl child of her parents and who takes admission in a full-time, regular, non-professional postgraduate course at a UGC-recognised institution.

Main features

• Rs 36,200 per year for up to two years of PG study.
• Only for a single girl child with no brother (twins/two daughters with no brother are eligible).
• Benefit availed only in the first year of the PG course.
• Distance-mode and professional PG courses are excluded.

Who is eligible for this scholarship?

A girl can apply if:

• She is the only girl child of her parents, or is one of twin daughters / two daughters with no male sibling.
• She is admitted to the first year of a full-time, regular, non-professional postgraduate course at a UGC-recognised institution.
• She is not above 30 years of age at the time of PG admission.

A girl cannot apply if:

• She has a brother — the single-girl-child condition is the core of the scheme.
• She is enrolled in a distance-education PG programme or a professional PG course, both of which are excluded.
• She is above 30 years at PG admission.
• She is already past the first year of the PG course. The claim must start in the first year.

The scheme narrowly targets single-daughter families pursuing general (non- professional) postgraduate education, which is why the eligibility conditions are strict.

What documents are required?

How to apply for the Indira Gandhi Single Girl Child PG Scholarship

Applications are made online only on the National Scholarship Portal:

1. Go to the National Scholarship Portal (NSP) at scholarships.gov.in and complete a fresh registration as a new applicant.
2. Log in and fill your student profile with personal, academic and bank account details.
3. Select the Post Graduate Indira Gandhi Scholarship for Single Girl Child under the UGC schemes.
4. Upload the single girl child declaration, PG admission proof, undergraduate marksheet and Aadhaar.
5. Submit the application before the annual deadline and save the application ID for tracking.

After submission the claim is verified by the institution and state authorities before UGC sanction. The benefit is availed only in the first year of the PG course.

How much does the scholarship pay?

The award is Rs 36,200 per year, paid over the two-year postgraduate programme, and works out to about Rs 3,100 per month credited by DBT to the student's Aadhaar-seeded bank account. The scholarship supports living and study costs during PG study and is renewed for the second year subject to the scheme's continuation conditions.

Help and where to check status

Application status is tracked on the National Scholarship Portal using the application ID. For portal problems such as OTP failures, upload errors or payment delays, use the NSP helpline on 0120-6619540 or the helpdesk email on scholarships.gov.in. Scheme-level queries can also be directed to the UGC via its scholarships pages at ugc.gov.in.

There is no fee to apply on the National Scholarship Portal, and no agent should be paid to secure this scholarship.

Common reasons for rejection

Most rejections under this scholarship trace back to the same handful of eligibility mismatches, not paperwork mistakes. Knowing them before applying saves a wasted application cycle.

• Applicant has a brother. The single-girl-child condition is checked against the declaration/affidavit and, at the verification stage, against family records held by the institution or local authority. If a brother is found on record, the claim is rejected outright, even if the declaration was submitted in good faith. There is no exception for this condition; it is the core test of the scheme.
• Admission is to a distance-education programme. The scheme covers only full-time, regular postgraduate courses. Applicants enrolled through open universities, distance-learning modes, or part-time/correspondence PG programmes are rejected at the eligibility-check stage, regardless of how strong the rest of the application is. The fix is simple: this scheme is not an option for distance-mode students; a different scholarship suited to that mode of study should be sought instead.
• Course is a professional programme. Professional postgraduate courses (such as those leading to a specific licensed profession) are excluded by design. Applicants sometimes assume "postgraduate" alone qualifies; verifying with the institution whether the specific PG course is classified as professional or general before applying avoids this rejection.
• Application filed after the first year. The benefit can only be claimed starting in the first year of the PG course. A student who applies in the second year, having missed the first-year window, will have the claim rejected for being outside the eligible period. Applying as soon as first-year admission is confirmed, rather than waiting, is the only way to avoid this.
• Age exceeds 30 at the time of PG admission. Age is checked against the admission date, not the application date. An applicant who was under 30 when applying but had already crossed 30 at the point of PG admission will still be rejected; the cut-off is fixed to the admission event.
• Bank account not Aadhaar-seeded, or Aadhaar not linked on NSP. Since disbursal is via Direct Benefit Transfer, a mismatch between the Aadhaar number on the NSP profile and the bank account's Aadhaar seeding status causes the payment step to fail even after approval. Confirming Aadhaar-bank linkage with the bank before submitting the NSP application prevents this.
• Mismatch between documents and NSP profile entries. Name, date of birth, or course details typed into the NSP form that do not match the uploaded admission proof, marksheet, or Aadhaar card are a common cause of rejection at the institution or state verification level. Cross-checking every field against the source document before final submission is worth the extra few minutes.
• Institution or state nodal officer fails to verify in time. Because the claim passes through institutional and state-level verification before UGC sanction, an application can lapse or be rejected simply because the college did not forward it within the portal's verification window. Following up with the college's NSP nodal officer soon after submission, rather than waiting passively, catches this before the deadline closes.
• Duplicate or multiple scholarship applications. Applying for more than one central scholarship for the same academic year through the NSP, where the schemes are mutually exclusive, can lead to one or both claims being rejected during the de-duplication check UGC and the portal run each cycle.