Pre-Matric Scholarship Scheme for Minorities, Class 1 to 10 (State Sector), Uttarakhand

What is the Pre-Matric Scholarship Scheme for minorities in Uttarakhand?

Pre-Matric Scholarship Scheme (Class 1 to 10) is a state-sector scholarship of the Minority Welfare Department, Government of Uttarakhand. It pays a small monthly scholarship to students from notified minority communities studying anywhere from Class 1 to Class 10 in the state, so that the direct costs of schooling: fees, uniform, stationery, exam charges: do not push a child out of the classroom before matriculation.

The scheme is often searched for as the Alpsankhyak Chhatravritti Yojana or the minority pre-matric scholarship. According to the department's scheme page, the rates are governed by a Government Order of 3 September 2005 which revised the scholarship rates, and the department lists the scheme as active on its current schemes and programmes page.

Why the state-sector scheme matters more than it used to. The Minority Welfare Department states on its centrally sponsored scholarship page that the Government of India's pre-matric minority scholarship now covers Class IX and above, with Classes I to VIII discontinued from 2022-23. That withdrawal left a gap for primary and upper-primary minority students. The Uttarakhand state-sector scheme, which runs the whole way from Class 1 to Class 10, is what now fills it for students in this state.

How much does the scholarship pay?

According to the Minority Welfare Department, Uttarakhand, the rates are:

The department states the scholarship is payable for a maximum of 12 months in a year. The amounts are modest, they were fixed by the 2005 Government Order, and they are best understood as a contribution towards school expenses rather than as full support. Payment is made by Direct Benefit Transfer into the student's Aadhaar-seeded bank account.

Students in Class 9 and Class 10 should note that they may instead be eligible for the centrally sponsored pre-matric scholarship, which the department also administers through the National Scholarship Portal, and which carries higher rates. A student can hold only one of the two for the same year.

Who is eligible for the minority scholarship in Classes 1 to 10?

You can apply if:

• The student belongs to one of the notified minority communities, Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain or Parsi (Zoroastrian).
• The student is studying in Class 1 to Class 10 in a school in Uttarakhand, government, aided or recognised private.
• Annual parental income from all sources is below Rs 1 lakh, which is the ceiling the Uttarakhand Minority Welfare Department states for this scheme.
• The student is a resident of Uttarakhand and can produce a permanent residence certificate.
• The student has, or can open, a bank account seeded with Aadhaar for the DBT payment.

You cannot apply if:

• The student does not belong to a notified minority community. Students from other communities should look at the Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe, OBC or general merit scholarships of the Social Welfare and Education departments instead.
• Parental annual income exceeds Rs 1 lakh from all sources. The certificate must cover all sources of income, not only salary.
• The student is in Class 11 or above — that is post-matric territory, covered by the department's separate Post Matric Scholarship Scheme and Merit-cum-Means scholarship.
• The student is already drawing another scholarship for the same class and the same academic year, since double benefit is not allowed.
• The student is studying outside Uttarakhand and is not a resident of the state; apply to the state where the student is domiciled.
• The school is not recognised, because the institution must be registered on the National Scholarship Portal to verify the application.

How to apply for the minority pre-matric scholarship

The Minority Welfare Department directs applicants to the National Scholarship Portal (NSP 2.0) at scholarships.gov.in. Follow these steps.

1. Collect the documents first. Obtain the income certificate and permanent residence certificate from the tehsil, either directly or through the Apuni Sarkar portal at eservices.uk.gov.in. Get the minority community self-declaration form filled and, where available, the community certificate.
2. Confirm the school is registered on NSP. Ask the school's scholarship nodal teacher for the institution's NSP code. Without a registered institution, an application cannot be verified.
3. Open or check the bank account. The account must be in the student's name and Aadhaar-seeded. For a young child, a minor account operated jointly with a parent is used. Confirm seeding at the bank branch, not by assumption.
4. Register on scholarships.gov.in. Create a One Time Registration on the National Scholarship Portal using the student's Aadhaar and a working mobile number, and complete the OTP verification. Note the registration ID.
5. Fill the application form. Select Uttarakhand as the state, Minority Welfare Department as the department, and the pre-matric scholarship for Class 1 to 10. Enter the class, school details, income and bank details exactly as they appear on the source documents.
6. Upload the scanned documents. Attach the income certificate, residence certificate, minority self-declaration, bonafide certificate, Aadhaar and bank passbook page, each within the size limit shown.
7. Submit and take a printout. Save the application ID and print the submitted form.
8. Get it verified by the school. Hand the printout and photocopies to the school nodal officer and confirm that the institution has verified the application online. This step is not automatic and is where most applications die.
9. Track the application on the portal until the status reads sanctioned and then paid.

If you cannot apply online yourself, a Common Service Centre or the school's computer lab can complete the form. The Uttarakhand citizen call centre on 155300 handles e-service problems, and the Minority Welfare Department's own help and feedback pages on minoritywelfare.uk.gov.in take departmental queries.

How do I check my scholarship status and payment?

Log in to scholarships.gov.in with the registration ID and check the application status. The status moves through a fixed sequence: submitted, verified by the institution, verified by the district or department, sanctioned, and finally paid. Payment status shows the DBT transaction once the amount is released.

If the status shows sanctioned but the money has not arrived, the problem is almost always at the bank end, an unseeded Aadhaar, a dormant account, or a frozen minor account. Take the passbook and Aadhaar to the branch and get the seeding confirmed with the bank's own NPCI mapper, then re-check.

Why do applications get rejected, and how do I avoid it?

• Institution did not verify. The single largest cause. Submitting on the portal is only half the job; the school must act on it before the closing date.
• Income certificate above Rs 1 lakh or expired. Get a fresh certificate for the current financial year; an old one is routinely rejected.
• Name mismatch across Aadhaar, school record and bank account. Correct the school record and the bank record to match the Aadhaar spelling before applying.
• Bank account not Aadhaar-seeded. DBT cannot credit an unseeded account, and the sanction simply fails.
• Duplicate application. Applying under both the state-sector and the centrally sponsored scheme for the same year gets one rejected.
• Minority status not declared correctly. Use the department's self-declaration format; a vague or unsigned declaration is returned.
• Applied after the closing date. The National Scholarship Portal closes hard on the notified date and there is no offline fallback.

What are the key dates?

The National Scholarship Portal opens a fresh application window for each academic year, typically from around July, with a notified closing date followed by separate deadlines for institution verification and district verification. The department does not publish a permanent fixed date, so check the notices section of minoritywelfare.uk.gov.in and the home page of scholarships.gov.in at the start of the academic year.

Renewal students must reapply in the renewal window each year. A scholarship sanctioned once does not carry forward automatically.

Where do I take a grievance?

Raise a scholarship problem in this order:

1. The school's scholarship nodal officer, for anything to do with verification, the bonafide certificate or institution details.
2. The District Minority Welfare Officer / District Social Welfare Office of your district, which handles district-level verification for the Minority Welfare Department.
3. The Minority Welfare Department, Uttarakhand, through the feedback and help pages on minoritywelfare.uk.gov.in.
4. The National Scholarship Portal helpdesk, for technical faults in the portal itself, through the grievance link on scholarships.gov.in.

For problems obtaining the income or residence certificate. A common bottleneck. The route is the tehsildar and then the Sub-Divisional Magistrate, with the Uttarakhand citizen call centre on 155300 for portal-side issues.

What other minority scholarships does Uttarakhand run?

The Minority Welfare Department's schemes page lists several related programmes a family should check alongside this one: the Minority Scholarship Scheme (100% CSS) covering pre-matric Class IX and above, post-matric and merit-cum-means; the Post Matric Scholarship Scheme (100% CSS) for Class 11 and above; the Merit Cum Means Based Scholarship for professional and technical courses; the Mukhya Mantri Alpsankhyak Medhavi Balika Protsahan Yojana for meritorious minority girls; the Madrasa Modernisation Scheme; the Minority Vikas Nidhi Scheme; and the Pradhan Mantri Jan Vikas Karyakram for development works in minority-concentration areas. A student leaving Class 10 should move directly on to the post-matric scholarship rather than assuming support ends at matriculation.