Pre-Matric Scholarship for Other Backward Classes, Uttar Pradesh

What is the Uttar Pradesh OBC pre-matric scholarship?

The Uttar Pradesh OBC Pre-Matric Scholarship is the state's financial support for Other Backward Class students studying in Class 9 and Class 10. It is administered by the Backward Class Welfare Department, which Hindi-speaking readers will know as the Pichhara Varg Kalyan Vibhag, and it is delivered through the same platform that carries every other state scholarship: the Scholarship and Fee Reimbursement Online System at scholarship.up.gov.in.

That portal is jointly operated by four departments, the Department of Social Welfare for scheduled castes and the General category, the Backward Class Welfare Department for OBC students, the Minority Welfare Department, and the Tribal Development Department. A single application form serves all four. The caste certificate uploaded with the form is what routes the file to the correct department, which for an OBC applicant means the District Backward Class Welfare Officer.

Pre-matric is deliberately a narrow window. Uttar Pradesh treats Classes 9 and 10 as the pre-matric stage; from Class 11 onwards the student moves to the post-matric scholarship and fee reimbursement stream, which is a different application on the same portal with different income limits and a different timetable. Choosing the wrong stream is the single most common first mistake, and the portal will not transfer a form between streams once submitted.

Payment does not pass through the school. According to the state's scholarship system, the whole process from application to disbursement is online and the amount is transferred into students' bank accounts through PFMS, the Public Financial Management System. This is why an Aadhaar-seeded bank account in the student's own name matters more than any other single document.

Who is eligible for the UP OBC pre-matric scholarship?

You can claim the scholarship if:

• You are a domicile of Uttar Pradesh.
• You belong to an Other Backward Class notified by the Government of Uttar Pradesh and hold a valid tehsil-issued OBC caste certificate.
• You are studying in Class 9 or Class 10 at a recognised school that is registered on scholarship.up.gov.in.
• Your family income is within the limit fixed in the Backward Class Welfare Department's pre-matric niyamavali for that session. The department publishes the current limit on the portal; do not assume last year's figure, because the niyamavali is revised from time to time.
• You have completed One Time Registration (OTR) on the portal.
• You hold a bank account in your own name that is Aadhaar-seeded.

You cannot apply, or are not eligible, if:

• Your family income exceeds the limit stated in the applicable niyamavali.
• You do not hold an OBC certificate, in which case you apply through the Social Welfare, Minority Welfare or Tribal Development stream as appropriate.
• You are studying in Class 8 or below, or Class 11 or above, pre-matric on this portal covers only Classes 9 and 10.
• Your school is not registered on the portal, because there is then no login to verify and forward your application.
• Your school appears on the portal's blacklisted institutions list, which is published district-wise on the home page.
• You have not completed OTR. The portal blocks the application form entirely until OTR is done.
• Your bank account is not in your own name, is dormant, or is not Aadhaar-seeded, since PFMS cannot credit it.

A student who has already drawn the same pre-matric scholarship for the same class in the same session cannot draw it twice; renewals are for the next class, not a repeat of the same year.

What documents are required?

Keep both the caste certificate and the income certificate current. A certificate that has expired between issue and verification is treated as invalid, and this is one of the most avoidable rejection reasons in the pre-matric stream.

How to apply for the UP OBC pre-matric scholarship

1. Open scholarship.up.gov.in and complete One Time Registration (OTR) first. The portal states that from session 2025-26 OTR is compulsory and that a student can apply only after completing it. Note down the OTR number.
2. Check your Aadhaar seeding status using the link on the home page. If your bank account is not seeded with Aadhaar, get it seeded at the branch before you go further, because a sanctioned scholarship still fails at the PFMS stage without seeding.
3. Under Students → New Registration, select the Pre-Matric (Class 9-10) stream and register. Renewal students use the Renewal login instead of registering again.
4. Log in with the registration number and password, then fill the application: personal details, OBC category, family income, school and class details, and bank account number with IFSC code.
5. Upload the caste certificate, income certificate, previous class mark sheet, bank passbook page and photograph.
6. Final submit the form. A form that is saved but not finally submitted does not exist as far as the department is concerned — the portal counts "final submitted applications" as a separate statistic from registrations.
7. Print the submitted application and hand the hard copy with photocopies to your school office inside the date given in the session timetable.
8. Track the file through the Status menu on the portal, and track the money through the PFMS Know Your Payment link using your bank account number.

How does verification work?

Verification happens at two levels, and neither is under the student's control. The school first checks the enrolment, class, category and income declaration against the hard copy and forwards the application online. The District Backward Class Welfare Officer then approves it and the file moves to payment.

This two-stage design explains a common confusion. The portal reports separate counts for total OTR, final submitted applications, and applications forwarded by institutions. If your status shows "submitted" but not "forwarded", the file is sitting in the school office and no amount of following up at the district level will move it. Go to the school first.

Key dates for the 2026-27 session

The Uttar Pradesh scholarship portal does not publish a single last date. It publishes a timetable for each session, and the timetable is the authority. For 2026-27 the portal's timetable table records that the pre-matric schedule was issued on 20 July 2026, on the same day as the post-matric schedule covering SC, ST, General, Minority and OBC categories.

The timetable sets out separate start and last dates for each stage: student registration, form filling, hard copy submission to the school, school forwarding, and the district-level correction window. Because these windows shift every year, open the Timetables block on the home page and read the schedule for the pre-matric stream specifically. The portal also keeps a Previous Year Time Tables page, which is useful only for planning, never for the current deadline.

Why UP OBC pre-matric applications fail

• OTR not completed, so the application form never opens.
• Aadhaar not seeded in the bank account, which makes the PFMS credit fail even after sanction.
• Bank account not in the student's own name, or dormant, or closed.
• Income or caste certificate expired or above the limit for the category.
• Application not finally submitted; saved as a draft and left there.
• School did not forward the hard copy inside the timetable window.
• School blacklisted, in which case no application from it is processed.
• Name or date of birth mismatch between Aadhaar, the mark sheet and the bank record. Fix the mismatch at source before the correction window closes.

Corrections are possible only inside the correction window shown in that session's timetable. The portal has run dedicated correction logins for the OBC category in past sessions, so check the notice board rather than assuming the window has passed.

Where to complain

The portal carries a Grievance Redressal System link in the main menu and a separate Feedback page. For OBC applicants the department contacts published on the Contact Us page are:

• Backward Class Welfare Department: 0522-2288861, toll free 1800-180-5131.

For a complaint about one specific file, the District Backward Class Welfare Officer of your district is the right authority, because that is the officer whose login holds your application. A general grievance about the portal or a school's conduct can also be filed on the state's Jansunwai platform at jansunwai.up.nic.in, quoting your application number.

Applying is free. No agent, cyber cafe or school official can charge a fee for "getting the scholarship passed", and no officer will ask for your OTP or your portal password.

How to check your application status

The UP scholarship portal reports status in stages, and the stage your application is stuck at tells you exactly who to contact next, so read the stage name carefully rather than treating "pending" as one single problem.

1. Go to scholarship.up.gov.in and log in with your registration number and password, the same credentials created at the time of application, not the OTR login.
2. Open the Status or Application Status menu from the student dashboard. Enter your registration number if asked.
3. Read the stage shown against your application, not just whether it says "pending" or "approved":

• Registered / OTR done: only the one-time registration exists; the actual scholarship application form has not been filled or submitted yet.
• Application Submitted (Final): the student has finally submitted the form, but the school has not yet acted on it.
• Forwarded by Institution: the school has verified the enrolment, class and category details and sent the file onward. This is the stage where most delay complaints turn out to be misplaced, the file is still sitting with the school before this point.
• Verified/Approved by District Backward Class Welfare Officer: the district officer has checked the file and cleared it for sanction.
• Sanctioned: the scholarship amount has been approved for release.
• Disbursed/Paid: the amount has actually been sent for credit.

4. To confirm the money side separately from the file side, use the PFMS Know Your Payment tool (accessible from the PFMS website or linked from the scholarship portal) and enter your bank account number. This tells you whether an amount was actually credited, which can lag behind a "Sanctioned" status on the scholarship portal by some days.
5. If the status has not moved past Application Submitted for several weeks after the school-forwarding date in that session's timetable, the file is with the school, not the district. Visit the school office directly with your application printout; no district-level phone call or letter will move a file the school has not forwarded.
6. If the status is stuck at Forwarded or Verified well past the timetable's sanction window, contact the District Backward Class Welfare Officer of your district, quoting your registration number and the exact status text shown on screen.
7. For a status query that gets no response through the normal chain, use the portal's Grievance Redressal System link, or file a complaint on the state's Jansunwai platform at jansunwai.up.nic.in with your registration number, rather than repeating the same follow-up call.

Keep the registration number and the OTR number noted separately; the status page and the grievance forms ask for the registration number, while some helpline calls ask for the OTR number first to locate the student record.