Scholarship (Above VIII Standard) - Tamil Nadu

What is the Scholarship (Above VIII Standard) for differently abled students?

Scholarship (Above VIII Standard) is the upper half of the education scholarship run by the Department for the Welfare of Differently Abled Persons, Government of Tamil Nadu. The department's stated purpose is to promote special education and to encourage students' attendance, and it pays the scholarship every year according to the student's specific level of education.

The scheme covers differently abled students studying above Class 8, that is, Classes 9 to 12, undergraduate degrees, and postgraduate and professional courses. A parallel scheme covers Classes 1 to 8 at lower rates.

The most significant recent change is the rate revision: during 2023-24, the amount of scholarship for each eligible category was doubled. A student in Class 11 who previously received Rs 4,000 a year now receives Rs 8,000; a postgraduate who received Rs 7,000 now receives Rs 14,000.

Current annual rates across the whole scholarship

Scale. In the financial year 2024-25, an amount of Rs 1,441.62 lakh was incurred to benefit 20,239 students under the scholarship scheme. A sum of Rs 1,386.02 lakh is provided in the Budget Estimate for 2025-26.

Who is eligible for the scholarship, and who is excluded?

A student can claim if:

• The student is a differently abled person holding a disability certificate issued by the appropriate certifying medical authority for the particular disability. Certificates are issued at medical boards in Government Medical College Hospitals, District Headquarters Hospitals, Taluk and non-Taluk hospitals, and at special camps.
• The student holds a National Identity Disability Card (NIDC) or UDID card. Tamil Nadu issues the NIDC to persons with 40 per cent and above disability; 8,94,220 UDID cards had been generated and delivered as on 31 March 2025.
• The student is studying above Class 8, in Class 9 to 12, an ITI or diploma course, a UG degree, or a PG or professional course.
• The student is studying in Tamil Nadu, in a government school, a government-aided special school, an NGO-run special school receiving grant-in-aid, a government training centre, or a recognised college.
• The student is attending regularly, since the scholarship exists to encourage attendance.

A student cannot claim if:

• There is no disability certificate. The certificate is the basis of every benefit in this department, and a claim without it is not eligible.
• The disability is assessed below 40 per cent, which keeps the student outside the NIDC threshold on which the department's benefits are built.
• The disability certificate has expired. Temporary certificates lapse and must be renewed at a medical board before the claim is filed.
• The student is not enrolled in the academic year being claimed. The bonafide certificate from the institution is what proves enrolment.
• The student is in Class 8 or below, in which case the claim belongs under the separate Classes 1 to 8 scholarship at Rs 2,000 or Rs 6,000.

How to apply for the scholarship

1. Obtain or renew the disability certificate from the appropriate certifying authority for the particular disability, at a medical board in a Government Medical College Hospital, District Headquarters Hospital, Taluk or non-Taluk hospital, or at a special camp. The State Resource cum Training Centres at Chennai and Tiruchirappalli also issue certificates and the NIDC.
2. Obtain the NIDC or UDID card from the District Differently Abled Welfare Office.
3. Ask the institution for the scholarship application form and a bonafide certificate for the current academic year. Schools, colleges and training centres normally consolidate the claims of all eligible students and forward them together.
4. Open a bank account in the student's name, or a joint account with a parent or guardian, and seed it with Aadhaar.
5. Submit the application through the institution to the District Differently Abled Welfare Officer, or file it at an e-Sevai centre, which is where the department directs departmental applications in Tamil Nadu. Keep the acknowledgement.
6. Claim at the correct rate. When a student moves from Class 12 to a degree, or from a degree to a PG or professional course, the rate band changes and the form must reflect it.
7. Renew each academic year. The scholarship is annual and is not carried forward automatically.
8. Check the bank account after sanction; the scholarship is credited directly.

What else a differently abled student above Class 8 receives

The scholarship is one item in a larger package. Students and families lose money every year by claiming only this one.

• Readers allowance for visually impaired students from Class 9 onwards; Rs 3,000 a year in Classes 9 to 12, Rs 5,000 for a UG degree and Rs 6,000 for a PG or professional degree. In 2024-25, Rs 65.67 lakh benefited 1,454 students, with Rs 100 lakh allocated for 2025-26.
• Scribe assistance — visually impaired students in standards 9 and above in government and government-aided special schools are permitted scribes, with assistance of Rs 300 per paper. In 2024-25, Rs 29.34 lakh benefited 535 students, with Rs 45.75 lakh allocated for 2025-26.
• Chief Minister's Research Fellowship: Rs 1,00,000 to differently abled students undergoing PhD research, with an allocation of Rs 50 lakh for 50 students. Four eligible applicants were sanctioned Rs 1 lakh each.
• Free special education with hostel, food, clothing and educational materials for students in government and aided special schools. Tamil Nadu runs 22 government residential special schools benefiting 1,094 children, 48 government-aided special schools benefiting 4,356 students, and 323 NGO-run special schools with grant-in-aid.
• Modern reading devices for 1,000 visually challenged students in higher education at Rs 13,200 each, and universal Braille kits and tactile books at Rs 5,000 to Rs 10,000 per kit for 430 students.
• Uniform subsidy, raised to Rs 500 for differently abled students in government special schools and Rs 600 for visually impaired students in government vocational training centres, with an additional allocation of Rs 11.66 lakh for 1,154 students.
• Free travel for day-scholars and annual study tours for students of special schools.
• Smart classes; touch-screen boards for hearing impaired children, high-tech electronic Braille devices for visually challenged students in all ten government special schools, and QR-coded sign-language textbooks for Class 1 hearing impaired children.
• National Scholarship for students with disabilities, run by the Government of India, under which Rs 582.99 lakh was disbursed in the reported year in Tamil Nadu.

Why scholarship claims fail

• Disability certificate expired. The most common cause. Renew at a medical board before the claim is filed.
• NIDC or UDID card not obtained, leaving no departmental record linking the student to the 40 per cent threshold.
• Bonafide certificate missing or for the wrong academic year, so enrolment cannot be verified.
• Claim filed at the wrong level. A student who has moved from Class 12 to a degree should be claimed at Rs 12,000, and a mismatch sends the file back.
• Bank account not seeded with Aadhaar, which stops the credit even after sanction.
• Institution did not forward the consolidated list in time. Check with the head of the institution before assuming the department rejected the claim.
• Claim filed in the wrong district, rather than the district where the student studies or resides.

Help and grievance

• Toll-free helpline: 1800-425-0111, set up exclusively for differently abled persons at the State Resource cum Training Centre, Chennai.
• Hearing impaired families: WhatsApp video call 9499933703.
• District level: the District Differently Abled Welfare Officer.
• State level: the Commissionerate for Welfare of the Differently Abled, No. 5, Kamarajar Salai, Chennai 600 005 to scd.tn.gov.in.

No fee is payable for the scholarship application, and no agent is required at any stage.

How to check your application status

The scholarship has no independent online tracking portal for an applicant to log into. The claim moves through the institution and the district welfare office as a paper file, so status has to be checked at those two points rather than on a website.

• Ask the institution first. Because schools, colleges and training centres consolidate every eligible student's claim into one list before forwarding it, the institution's scholarship in-charge or the head of the institution usually knows whether the consolidated list has left the campus, and on what date.
• Follow up with the District Differently Abled Welfare Officer. Once the institution has forwarded the list, sanction and disbursal happen at the district office. Quote the academic year, the student's name, and the disability certificate or NIDC/UDID number when asking, since the file is tracked against these, not against an online application ID.
• Check the bank account directly. The scholarship is credited straight to the student's bank account (or the joint account with a parent or guardian) once sanctioned, so a credit entry for the relevant academic year is the clearest confirmation that the claim has gone through. No separate confirmation letter is issued for most claims.
• Call the toll-free helpline on 1800-425-0111, run for differently abled persons at the State Resource cum Training Centre, Chennai, if the institution and district office cannot immediately confirm the stage a claim is at. Hearing impaired families can instead use the WhatsApp video call number 9499933703.
• Escalate to the Commissionerate for the Welfare of the Differently Abled at Chennai only if the district office does not respond, since the commissionerate holds the state-level oversight of the scheme rather than individual case files.
• If the claim was filed through an e-Sevai centre, the acknowledgement given at the time of filing is the only receipt available; keep it, since it is what the institution or district office will ask for to trace the application if it needs to be looked up manually.

Because there is no SMS or portal-based status update for this particular scholarship, applicants who hear nothing by the time other students in the same institution have been paid should treat that as the cue to follow up rather than wait for a notification that will not arrive on its own.