Scholarship (I to VIII Standard) by Welfare of Differently Abled Persons

What is the scholarship for differently abled students in Classes 1 to 8?

Scholarship (I to VIII Standard) by Welfare of Differently Abled Persons is part of the education scholarship scheme 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 originally covered the cost of notebooks and basic study materials for differently abled children in government schools. It has since been consolidated into a single annual education scholarship paid across every level of schooling and higher education, and during 2023-24 the amount of scholarship for each eligible category was doubled.

Current annual rates:

Scale. In the financial year 2024-25, Rs 1,441.62 lakh was spent to benefit 20,239 students. 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.
• The student holds a National Identity Disability Card or UDID card. Tamil Nadu issues the NIDC to persons with 40 per cent and above disability on the basis of the disability certificate.
• The student is studying in Tamil Nadu: in a government school, a government-aided special school, or an NGO-run special school receiving grant-in-aid, and at higher levels in a recognised institution.
• 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 the department's benefits are built on.
• The student is not enrolled in the academic year being claimed. The bonafide certificate from the school is what proves enrolment.
• The claim is for a level of education not in the department's table.

How to apply for the differently abled students' scholarship

1. Obtain or renew the disability certificate. Disability certificates are issued by the appropriate certifying authority relevant to the particular disability at the medical board in Government Medical College Hospitals, District Headquarters Hospitals, Taluk and non-Taluk hospitals, and at special camps. 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. 8,94,220 UDID cards had been generated and delivered to residences as on 31 March 2025.
3. Ask the school for the scholarship application form and a bonafide certificate for the current academic year. Schools normally consolidate the claims of all eligible students.
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 school to the District Differently Abled Welfare Officer, or file it at an e-Sevai centre where the department directs departmental applications. Keep the acknowledgement.
6. Renew each academic year. The scholarship is annual and moves up a rate band when the student moves from Class 5 to Class 6, from Class 8 to Class 9, and so on.
7. Check the bank account after sanction; the scholarship is credited directly.

What documents are required?

What else a differently abled student in Tamil Nadu receives

The scholarship is only one part of a wider special education package, and families routinely miss the rest of it:

• Free special education with hostel, food, clothing and educational materials for every student studying in a government or aided special school. Tamil Nadu runs 22 government residential special schools, 48 government-aided special schools and 323 NGO-run special schools with grant-in-aid. Ten government schools serve visually challenged students and ten serve hearing impaired students, with one each for intellectually challenged and severely affected locomotor disabled children. 1,094 children study in the 22 government institutions and 4,356 students in the 48 aided institutions.
• Reader's allowance for visually impaired students from Class 9 onwards — Rs 3,000 a year in Classes 9 to 12, Rs 5,000 for an undergraduate degree and Rs 6,000 for a postgraduate or professional degree. In 2024-25, Rs 65.67 lakh benefited 1,454 students.
• Scribe assistance and extra time in government examinations for visually impaired students in Class 9 and above, with certificates issued by the State Resource cum Training Centres.
• Modern reading devices for visually challenged students in higher education, procured for 1,000 students at Rs 13,200 each.
• Smart classes with touch-screen boards for hearing impaired children and 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.
• Chief Minister's Research Fellowship of Rs 1,00,000 for differently abled students pursuing PhD research, with an allocation of Rs 50 lakh for 50 students.
• Free travel for day-scholars and annual study tours for students of special schools.

Why scholarship claims fail

• Disability certificate expired. Temporary certificates lapse and must be renewed at a medical board before the claim is filed.
• Bonafide certificate missing, so enrolment for the year cannot be verified.
• Bank account not seeded with Aadhaar, which stops the credit.
• Claim filed at the wrong level. A student who has moved from Class 8 to Class 9 should be claimed at the Rs 8,000 rate, and a mismatch sends the file back.
• School did not forward the consolidated list in time, which is worth checking with the headmaster rather than assuming the department rejected the claim.

Help and grievance

• Toll-free helpline: 1800-425-0111 at the State Resource cum Training Centre, Chennai, set up exclusively for differently abled persons.
• Hearing impaired: WhatsApp video call 9499933703.
• District level: the District Differently Abled Welfare Officer, in all 39 districts.
• State level: Commissionerate for Welfare of the Differently Abled, Chennai; 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

This scholarship is not tracked through a single online applicant-status portal. The application moves on paper from the school to the District Differently Abled Welfare Officer, so status checks are mostly a matter of following up at each of those two points rather than logging into a tracking dashboard.

1. Ask the school first. The school consolidates every eligible student's claim into one list before forwarding it, so the class teacher or headmaster usually knows whether a particular student's name is on the list that went out and when it was sent.
2. Confirm the acknowledgement. If the application was submitted directly at an e-Sevai centre rather than through the school, the acknowledgement slip given at submission carries a reference that the centre or the District Differently Abled Welfare Office can look up.
3. Follow up with the District Differently Abled Welfare Officer. Once the school's consolidated list has been forwarded, the district office is the authority actually sanctioning payment, and it can confirm whether a student's claim has been approved, is still under verification, or was returned for a missing document.
4. Call the toll-free helpline on 1800-425-0111, run by the State Resource cum Training Centre in Chennai, for a status update or to be redirected to the right district contact. Hearing impaired applicants and family members can use the WhatsApp video call number 9499933703 instead of a voice call.
5. Watch the bank account once the district office confirms sanction. Since the scholarship is credited directly to the student's bank account, a credit entry is the final confirmation that the claim has gone through for that academic year; if the sanction has been confirmed but no credit appears after a reasonable interval, that is itself a reason to go back to the district office rather than assume the case is closed.
6. Check with the Commissionerate for Welfare of the Differently Abled in Chennai, or scd.tn.gov.in, if the district office is unresponsive or the case has been pending well beyond a normal academic term; the state office can escalate a stalled file.

Because the scholarship is renewed every academic year rather than paid once, it is worth repeating this check each year after re-submission rather than assuming continuity from the previous year's approval.