Nabanna Scholarship (Chief Minister's Relief Fund Educational Assistance)

What is the Nabanna Scholarship?

The Nabanna Scholarship is the popular name for the educational assistance given from the West Bengal Chief Minister's Relief Fund. It takes its everyday name from Nabanna, the state secretariat building in Howrah from which the Chief Minister's Office operates and to which applications are addressed.

Nabanna Scholarship is not a departmental scholarship with a published rate card. It is relief-fund assistance: a student writes a prayer letter to the Chief Minister, supports it with documents and a recommendation from their local MLA or MP, and the Chief Minister's Office sanctions a one-time grant on the merits of the case.

That distinction explains almost everything else about the scheme, including the things students find frustrating about it. There is no fixed amount published. There is no automatic renewal. And there is a hard limit of one registration per 365 days.

The scheme's most interesting design feature is its marks band. Eligibility requires "securing 50% and above but less than 60% marks in aggregate". A student who scores 62 per cent is not eligible; not because they are too weak, but because they are the target of the Swami Vivekananda Merit Cum Means Scholarship, which sets its bar at 60 per cent. The two schemes are designed to sit next to each other. Between them, a low-income West Bengal student with 50 per cent or more has somewhere to go, which is a more thoughtful arrangement than either scheme looks like in isolation.

Who is eligible for the Nabanna Scholarship?

You can seek assistance if:

• You are a permanent resident of West Bengal.
• You have secured 50 per cent or more but less than 60 per cent in aggregate in your qualifying examination, at higher secondary or undergraduate level.
• You are currently enrolled in an institution in West Bengal after passing your Secondary, Higher Secondary or undergraduate examination.
• Your yearly family income does not exceed Rs 1,20,000.
• You are not receiving any other scholarship, government or non-government.
• You have not registered for this assistance in the preceding 365 days.

You cannot apply, or are not eligible, if:

• You scored 60 per cent or more in the qualifying examination. Apply for the Swami Vivekananda Merit Cum Means Scholarship instead.
• You scored below 50 per cent.
• Your yearly family income exceeds Rs 1,20,000.
• You are not a permanent resident of West Bengal.
• You are studying outside West Bengal.
• You are already drawing another scholarship from any source.
• You registered within the last 365 days, whatever the outcome of that registration.
• You cannot obtain a recommendation from your local MLA or MP, which is a mandatory part of the file rather than an optional endorsement.

The income ceiling deserves emphasis because it is the criterion most applicants get wrong. Rs 1,20,000 a year is roughly Rs 10,000 a month for the whole family. Most other West Bengal scholarships: Sikshashree, the pre-matric and post-matric scholarships, SVMCM — work to a Rs 2.5 lakh ceiling. A student who qualifies comfortably on income for those schemes may still be well above the Nabanna Scholarship's line.

What documents are required for the Nabanna Scholarship?

All documents are submitted as PDF files of no more than 500 KB each. Scan and compress before you start.

How to apply for the Nabanna Scholarship

1. Open cmrf.wb.gov.in and go to the applicant login for educational assistance. Register as a new applicant with your personal, academic and contact details.
2. Note your registration details and the date. The 90-day document window and the 365-day repeat bar both run from this point.
3. Write the prayer letter addressed to the Chief Minister, stating your course, your institution, your family's circumstances and the assistance you are seeking, and sign it.
4. Obtain the recommendation letter from your local MLA or MP. Start this immediately, it is the item most likely to consume the whole 90 days, because it depends on someone else's diary rather than on your paperwork.
5. Collect the income certificate from the competent authority, showing yearly family income within Rs 1,20,000, along with the mark sheet, class 10 admit card, current admission receipt and bank passbook copy.
6. Prepare the self-declaration stating that you are not receiving any other government or non-government scholarship.
7. Upload all documents through the portal within 90 days of registration, each as a PDF of up to 500 KB. Applications where the document set is never completed simply lapse.
8. Follow up with the Chief Minister's Office at Nabanna on the contact details below if you hear nothing after a reasonable period.

Where is the office and when is it open?

• Chief Minister's Office, Nabanna
• Address: 325 Sarat Chatterjee Road, Howrah 711 102
• Phone: 033 2253 5335
• Email: wbcmrfedu2020[at]gmail[dot]com
• Hours: Monday to Friday, 10:00 am to 5:30 pm, excluding public holidays

How much does the Nabanna Scholarship pay?

The official portal does not publish a fixed grant amount. Assistance from the Chief Minister's Relief Fund is sanctioned on the individual merits of a case, which is the ordinary character of relief-fund support rather than a gap in the published information.

This guide therefore does not state a rupee figure. Amounts circulate widely in online summaries of this scheme, and a student planning a year's expenses around a number that does not appear on cmrf.wb.gov.in is planning around an assumption. The reliable figure is the one that appears in your own sanction communication.

Payment is made to the applicant's own bank account, which is why a passbook copy is a mandatory document and why the account should be active and correctly named before you apply.

How do I check my Nabanna Scholarship status?

1. Log in to cmrf.wb.gov.in with the credentials created at registration and check whether all your documents show as received.
2. Confirm the 90-day window has not expired against your registration date. An incomplete file is the commonest reason a case never progresses.
3. Telephone the Chief Minister's Office on 033 2253 5335 during office hours, quoting your registration details, or write to the email address above.
4. Check your bank account for the credit once a sanction is communicated.

Why do Nabanna Scholarship applications fail?

• Marks of 60 per cent or above, which puts the applicant outside the band the scheme is written for.
• Family income above Rs 1,20,000 a year; by a distance the most frequent disqualifier.
• No MLA or MP recommendation letter, or a letter obtained too late to upload inside the 90-day window.
• Documents not submitted within 90 days of registration, so the case lapses.
• Files above the 500 KB PDF limit, or scans too poor to read.
• Another scholarship already being drawn, which contradicts the mandatory self-declaration.
• Re-registration inside 365 days of a previous registration.
• Bank account in a parent's name, so the sanctioned amount cannot be transferred.
• Studying outside West Bengal, or at an institution outside the state.

What else should a West Bengal student consider?

A student who finds they fall outside this scheme is usually eligible for something else, and it is worth checking before giving up:

• Swami Vivekananda Merit Cum Means Scholarship at svmcm.wb.gov.in, for students at 60 per cent and above with family income up to Rs 2.5 lakh, covering class 11 to PhD.
• Post-matric scholarships for SC, ST and OBC students on the OASIS portal at oasis.wb.gov.in, which work to a Rs 2.5 lakh income ceiling.
• West Bengal Student Credit Card Scheme, which is a loan rather than a grant and therefore carries no marks band at all.

Applying for the Nabanna Scholarship is free. No fee is payable to any person for registering, for obtaining a recommendation, or for "processing" a Chief Minister's Relief Fund case, and no official will ask an applicant for a bank OTP or an internet banking password.