Sikshashree Scheme

What is the Sikshashree Scheme?

Sikshashree is a pre-matric scholarship run by the Government of West Bengal for Scheduled Caste students in the middle-school years. The West Bengal government describes the purpose plainly: to "provide financial assistance to the SC students reading in classes V to VIII to improve their participation in Pre-matric stages and minimize the incidence of drop-out especially in case of girl students."

Sikshashree is administered by the Backward Classes Welfare Department for SC students, and a parallel Sikshashree with identical design is run by the Tribal Development Department for ST students. Both are delivered through the same state scholarship platform, OASIS, at oasis.wb.gov.in.

The scheme's most useful feature is administrative rather than financial. Before Sikshashree, a middle-school student in West Bengal had to be tracked across two separate assistance heads. A book grant and a maintenance grant: each with its own paperwork and its own release cycle. Sikshashree merged them into one consolidated annual payment made directly into the student's bank account, which removed a layer of file-pushing and made it far easier for a school to say whether a child had actually been paid.

Key features of Sikshashree

• A single consolidated annual payment of Rs 800 per eligible student.
• Restricted to day scholars in classes V to VIII; hostellers are covered by separate hostel-based provisions.
• Paid by direct benefit transfer into the student's own bank account, never a guardian's.
• Applied for online on oasis.wb.gov.in, with the school as the first verifying authority.
• No application fee at any stage.

The Tribal Development Department's published figures give a sense of the scale on the ST side alone: roughly 1.81 lakh beneficiaries were assisted in 2021-22 at a cost of about Rs 14.48 crore. The SC-side coverage handled by the Backward Classes Welfare Department is larger still, and OASIS reported about 82,680 applications across its seven schemes in the early weeks of the 2026-27 session.

Who is eligible for Sikshashree?

You can claim Sikshashree if:

• You are a permanent resident of West Bengal.
• You belong to the Scheduled Caste category and hold a caste certificate issued by the competent West Bengal authority. Scheduled Tribe students apply under the Tribal Development Department's Sikshashree.
• You are studying in class V, VI, VII or VIII.
• Your school is a government, government-aided or government-recognised institution in West Bengal.
• You attend as a day scholar.
• Your annual family income does not exceed Rs 2.5 lakh.
• You hold a bank account in your own name.

You cannot apply, or are not eligible, if:

• You are a hosteller. Sikshashree is defined for day scholars.
• You are in class IX or above, or below class V. Class IX and X students move to the pre-matric scholarship, and students past class X to the post-matric scholarship, both also on OASIS.
• Your family's annual income is above Rs 2.5 lakh.
• You are not a permanent resident of West Bengal, even if you study at a West Bengal school.
• You do not belong to the SC or ST category.
• You are already drawing another scholarship of a comparable kind for the same purpose and the same year.

A practical note on the income certificate. Families often assume a ration card or a self-declaration will do. It will not: OASIS verification is done by the school and then at district level, and the income certificate must come from the BDO, SDO or the equivalent competent authority for the applicant's block or municipality.

What documents are required for Sikshashree?

Scan every document as a clear, readable file before you start. OASIS rejects blurred uploads at verification, and a re-upload usually means waiting for the school to reopen the application for editing.

How to apply for Sikshashree online

1. Open the OASIS portal at oasis.wb.gov.in and go to the Student's Area.
2. Select Fresh Registration if this is your first application, or Renewal if you received Sikshashree in an earlier class. Registration generates a user ID and password, write both down, because they are needed for every later login and for status checks.
3. Log in and fill the application form completely: student name exactly as it appears in the school register, date of birth, caste category, class, school code, guardian's details and annual family income.
4. Enter your bank details — account number, IFSC and branch, from the passbook itself, not from memory. A single wrong digit is the most common reason a sanctioned payment fails.
5. Upload the documents: caste certificate, income certificate, bank passbook first page, Aadhaar and residence proof.
6. Select the Sikshashree application form for your category and submit it.
7. Print or save the acknowledgement carrying your application ID.
8. Hand the printout and the original documents to your school so the head of institution can complete the online verification. An application that the school never verifies is never sanctioned, no matter how correctly it was filled.

How to apply for Sikshashree offline

Sikshashree has no purely paper route to sanction. The sanction happens on OASIS. What exists offline is assisted filing, and for a class V student that is usually the realistic path.

1. Approach your school head or the teacher in charge of scholarships, who holds the institution's OASIS login and files applications for students every session.
2. Submit photocopies of all documents along with the student's bank passbook to the school.
3. The school enters the application on OASIS on the student's behalf and verifies it in the same system.
4. Collect the acknowledgement with the application ID from the school and keep it for status checks.

How much does Sikshashree pay and when?

Sikshashree pays Rs 800 per year per eligible student. The Tribal Development Department states the rate in exactly those terms: "Each scholar is paid @ Rs. 800/- p.a. through his/her Bank Account only."

Payment is made once per academic session, by direct benefit transfer, after the school verification and the district-level sanction are both complete. There is no monthly instalment. Because the release depends on when a district clears its verified list, students in different districts of West Bengal often receive the same year's Sikshashree in different months.

One point worth setting expectations on: OASIS notes that for SC students the department has at times followed a phased disbursement, releasing an initial share of the eligible amount and the balance subsequently. If a smaller amount than expected lands first, check the OASIS payment status before assuming an error.

How do I check my Sikshashree application status?

1. Log in to oasis.wb.gov.in with the user ID and password created at registration.
2. Open the Application Status or Track Application option in the Student's Area.
3. Read the stage shown: submitted, verified by the institution, forwarded to the district, sanctioned, or paid.
4. If it is stuck at institution verification, the fix is with your school, not the portal. Ask the head of institution to complete the verification step.

If you have lost your login, use the Forgot User ID / Password option on the portal rather than creating a second registration. A duplicate registration for the same student is a rejection ground on its own.

Why do Sikshashree applications get rejected?

• Name mismatch between the school register, the Aadhaar card and the bank passbook. The three must agree.
• Bank account in a guardian's name. Sikshashree pays the student only.
• Inactive, frozen or unseeded bank account, so the DBT credit bounces back.
• Income certificate showing Rs 2.5 lakh or more, or an expired certificate.
• Caste certificate not issued by the competent West Bengal authority.
• Hosteller status recorded at the school, which places the student outside the day-scholar definition.
• School verification never completed, which leaves the application dormant.
• Duplicate registration by the same student in the same session.

Most of these are curable within the same session if caught early, which is the practical argument for checking status a few weeks after submission rather than waiting for the money.

Where do I complain about a Sikshashree problem?

• OASIS helpline: +91-8420023311
• OASIS email: bcwoasis@gmail.com
• School head of institution, for verification and data-entry corrections
• District Backward Classes Welfare Officer, for sanction and payment delays
• Backward Classes Welfare Department, anagrasarkalyan.gov.in, for policy and escalation

Sikshashree is free to apply for. No school, no cyber cafe and no middleman can charge a fee for "getting the scholarship sanctioned", and no official will ask for a student's bank OTP.