Award of Pre-matric Scholarship to Scheduled Caste Students Studying from VI to X Standard in Government Schools and Government recognised Private Schools in the Union Territory of Puducherry

What is the SC Pre-matric Scholarship in Puducherry?

The Award of Pre-matric Scholarship to Scheduled Caste Students is a cash scholarship of the Adi Dravidar Welfare and Scheduled Tribes Welfare Department, Government of Puducherry, for Scheduled Caste students in classes VI to X in government schools and government recognised private schools in the Union Territory.

The Department states the objective plainly: the award of a scholarship to Scheduled Caste students so that they can pursue elementary and secondary education continuously without hardship. Classes VI to X are the stage at which drop-out rates among Scheduled Caste children have historically been highest, and the scholarship is designed to keep a family's out-of-pocket school costs from becoming the reason a child leaves.

The rates published by the Department are:

The step up at class IX reflects the higher cost of the secondary stage; more subjects, practical work, and the board examination at the end of class X.

Two features distinguish this scholarship from the national pre-matric scholarship for Scheduled Caste students. First, the Department applies no income limit. A Scheduled Caste family is eligible regardless of what it earns, which removes both the income certificate threshold and the annual argument about whether a household has crossed it. Second, the Department requires nativity or residence in the Union Territory for not less than five years, which ties the scheme to settled residents of Puducherry, Karaikal, Mahe and Yanam rather than to short-term migrants.

The Adi Dravidar Welfare Department runs the scholarship as part of a wider students' welfare programme that also includes the Retention Scholarship for SC and ST girl students, the Award of Opportunity Cost to Parents of SC Girl Students, the post-matric scholarship, the Dr Ambedkar financial assistance for students in professional colleges, an ad-hoc merit grant, the Dr B.R. Ambedkar Memorial Award, reimbursement of college fees for the top twenty Scheduled Caste students in professional colleges, a pre-matric scholarship for students whose parents are engaged in unclean occupations, boys' and girls' hostels, a stipend for SC trainees in technical training institutions, and vocational training.

Who is eligible for the SC Pre-matric Scholarship?

A student can receive the scholarship if:

• The student belongs to a Scheduled Caste, evidenced by a caste certificate from the competent revenue authority.
• The student is studying in class VI to class X.
• The school is a government school or a government recognised private school in the Union Territory of Puducherry.
• The student has nativity or residence in the Union Territory for not less than five years.

A student is not eligible and cannot apply if:

• The student does not belong to a Scheduled Caste. Other Economically Backward Class students in the same classes should apply instead for the Directorate of School Education's Pre-Matric Scholarship to Other Economically Backward Class Students, and girl students other than SC and ST may apply for the Attendance Scholarship of Rs 200 a year.
• The student has less than five years' nativity or residence in the Union Territory.
• The student is below class VI or above class X. Students beyond class X should apply for the Department's post-matric scholarship, and students entering professional colleges for the Dr Ambedkar financial assistance or the top-twenty fee reimbursement.
• The school is not government recognised.
• The student's parent is engaged in an unclean occupation and the family is claiming under the Department's separate pre-matric scholarship for students whose parents are engaged in unclean occupation, which is a distinct scheme with its own rate.

Note that no income limit applies. Families sometimes assume they are ineligible because a parent is in salaried work; that assumption is wrong for this particular scheme.

What documents are required?

The three certificates; caste, income and residence-cum-nativity — must be issued by the competent authority, which in practice is the revenue administration of the region. Obtaining them is the slowest part of the process and should be started well before the school asks for the application.

How to apply for the SC Pre-matric Scholarship

1. Obtain the caste, income and residence-cum-nativity certificates from the competent revenue authority for your region, Puducherry, Karaikal, Mahe or Yanam. Allow several weeks; these certificates are the most common cause of a missed scholarship year.
2. Collect the application form from the head of the institution where the student is studying. The Adi Dravidar Welfare Department states that all scholarship applications should be sent through the head of the institution.
3. Fill in the form with the student's particulars, class, caste, residence details and bank account particulars, and attach proof of identity, the caste certificate, the income certificate, the residence-cum-nativity certificate, a copy of the bank passbook and a copy of the Aadhaar card.
4. Submit the completed application to the head of the institution for verification and signature. Do not submit it directly to the Department; the institutional route is the one the Department recognises.
5. The head of the institution forwards the applications to the Adi Dravidar Welfare Department, Thattanchavady, Puducherry 9, or to the Assistant Director at Karaikal or Yanam for those regions.
6. Follow up with the school during the academic year. The Department disburses the scholarship amount through the head of the school or institution where the student is studying, so the school is also the point at which a sanctioned amount can be traced.

How and when the scholarship is paid

The Department's practice, stated on its own students' welfare page, is that the scholarship amount is disbursed through the head of the school or institution where the student is studying. The Department also requires a copy of the bank account and the Aadhaar card with the application, so a student should have an operative bank account in their own name, seeded with Aadhaar, before applying.

The scholarship is annual. A student in class VI who receives Rs 1,500 will need a fresh application in class VII, and the rate steps up to Rs 2,500 when the student reaches class IX. There is no automatic renewal across years, and a family that assumes the sanction carries forward often loses a year.

Why applications are rejected, and how to avoid it

• The residence-cum-nativity certificate does not show five years. This is the single most frequent technical rejection, and it particularly affects families that have moved into the Union Territory recently.
• The caste certificate is issued by an authority that is not competent, or is a photocopy without attestation.
• The application does not go through the head of the institution, and so never enters the Department's list.
• The bank account is not in the student's name or is dormant.
• A name mismatch between the school record, the caste certificate, the Aadhaar record and the bank account. Certificates in regional script and school records in English frequently differ in the spelling of a name or the expansion of an initial.
• The student is claiming under the wrong scheme. A student whose parent is in an unclean occupation, or a girl student in the retention or opportunity cost schemes, is dealt with under separate heads of the same department.

What else the Adi Dravidar Welfare Department offers a student family

For students specifically, the Department runs the Grant of Retention Scholarship to SC girl students, the Award of Opportunity Cost to Parents of SC Girl Students at Rs 3,000 per academic year for each daughter in classes VI to XII, the Award of Post-matric Scholarship to SC students, the Grant of Dr Ambedkar Financial Assistance for students in professional colleges, an ad-hoc merit grant (special incentive), the Dr B.R. Ambedkar Memorial Award, reimbursement of college fees for the top twenty deserving Scheduled Caste students in professional colleges, and a stipend of Rs 170 per month to SC trainees in government technical training institutions for the whole period of training. The Department also runs boys' and girls' hostels and vocational training, and offers free special coaching for competitive examinations for SC and ST candidates in the Puducherry and Karaikal regions.

Beyond education, the Department distributes free house sites, gives a house construction subsidy, financial assistance to poor SC pregnant and lactating women, marriage assistance for poor SC brides, dhotis and sarees, funeral rites assistance, assistance under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, sanitary latrine construction assistance and washing machines to SC families.

Where to raise a grievance

Questions about the scholarship go first to the head of the institution, then to the Deputy Director, Students Wing, Adi Dravidar Welfare Department, Thattanchavady, Puducherry 9, on +91-413-2275631. The Director's office is on +91-413-2275681, +91-413-2275682 and +91-413-2276375, email adwel.pon@nic.in. The Assistant Director at Karaikal can be reached on +91-4368-222517 and at Yanam on +91-884-2324680. Grievances may also be filed through CPGRAMS at pgportal.gov.in.

There is no fee for the application, and no agent or middleman is involved.

How to check your application status

The Adi Dravidar Welfare Department does not run a public online tracking portal for this scholarship, so status checking is a manual, school-routed process rather than a login-and-check one.

1. Ask the head of the institution first. Because every application is collected, verified and forwarded by the school, the school is the first and fastest place to learn whether an application has been sent to the Department, is still pending verification, or has already been sanctioned.
2. Check whether the school has received a sanction list or disbursement advice. The Department pays the scholarship through the head of the school, so a sanctioned amount typically becomes visible at the school before the student's family hears anything directly from Thattanchavady.
3. If the school cannot confirm the status, call the Students Wing directly. The Deputy Director, Students Wing, Adi Dravidar Welfare Department can be reached on +91-413-2275631 for Puducherry region applications; the Assistant Director's offices at Karaikal (+91-4368-222517) and Yanam (+91-884-2324680) handle applications routed through those regions.
4. Keep a copy of the submitted application and the date it was handed to the school. Since there is no acknowledgement number or online reference ID for this scheme, the date of submission and the school's own records are what the Department's office will ask for when tracing a pending file.
5. If there is no response after a reasonable follow-up period, escalate through CPGRAMS at pgportal.gov.in, naming the Adi Dravidar Welfare Department and the academic year, rather than resubmitting a fresh application, which can create duplicate records.

A family should not assume silence means rejection. Because disbursement is bulk-processed through schools once a year, a scholarship can remain "pending" at the Department for weeks even after approval, simply because it has not yet been sent down to the school for payment.