AICTE-Margdarshan scheme(AMS)

Overview

About AMS

Nobody applies to AICTE-Margdarshan on their own behalf. The money moves between institutions: AICTE nominates a well-run technical institute as a Mentor Institute (MI), and that institute carries up to 10 nearby AICTE-approved colleges through the work of winning NBA accreditation. The rolls stay small. AICTE's own presentation on the initiative counts 41 mentor institutions against 964 beneficiary institutes and 111 institutes that have achieved accreditation of their programmes under it; the deck is undated, but it cites the guidelines launched in November 2020, so its counts belong to that period (Margdarshan Initiative presentation).

What defines the receiving side is an absence. A Mentee Beneficiary Institute (MBI) must be AICTE-approved, must sit roughly within 200 km of its mentor, and must have had none of its programmes accredited in the past ten years (Margdarshan Scheme Guidelines, June 2023). The scheme is aimed squarely at the college that has been running for years without a single accredited programme and has no internal route to one.

Read the June 2023 guidelines and nothing else. That document states in its own text that every earlier Margdarshan paper, including the Share and Mentor Institution scheme AICTE launched in 2016, stands superseded from the date of its notification (Margdarshan Scheme Guidelines, June 2023). Several of the superseded figures are still sitting on AICTE's own website, and that is where most of the confusion about this scheme begins.

Who runs it

Provider

At a glance

Key details

Calendar

Important dates

The scheme has been open since 2018 and myScheme records no closing date, which is accurate but not much use for planning. What actually governs an applicant is the calendar that starts the day the first instalment is released.

The last six months of the three years are deliberately left free for the closing report and for outcomes to land, so the mentoring work is really a 30-month job.

Who can apply

Eligibility criteria

The mentor side is judged on track record, not need. AICTE gives preference to institutions in existence for 15 years or more, and an AICTE-approved applicant must already hold accreditation that stays valid for at least six months from the date the proposal is submitted. Central Funded Institutions such as the IITs, NITs, IIITs, IISc, the IISERs and the IIMs are named in the guidelines as the kind of host expected to step forward, and AICTE approval is not mandatory for them where it does not apply.

Level and domain have to match, which is the constraint that most often disqualifies an otherwise strong proposal. An institute running only diploma programmes may apply, provided at least four diploma courses carry valid accreditation, but it may then mentor only diploma-level accreditation. Cross-functional mentoring is not permitted at all: an engineering institute cannot mentor a management college, and an institute accredited in the management domain must mentor within that domain.

On the receiving side, approval by another regulator is not a substitute. Institutes approved by bodies such as the Pharmacy Council of India or the Council of Architecture are not eligible to be mentored under the scheme, and an MBI already mapped to another mentor cannot be counted again. Geography is the one criterion AICTE will bend: institutes in the North East, Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep get special consideration, and travel by air may be allowed for them case by case (Margdarshan Scheme Guidelines, June 2023).

Who cannot apply

Exclusions

Most of the bars are financial rather than institutional, and they surprise first-time applicants. The grant cannot buy equipment or software, including computers, laptops and antivirus licences, and no capital expenditure or pro-rata amortisation of infrastructure is allowed against it. Subject-specific faculty development programmes and workshops that already have a home under other AICTE Quality Initiative Scheme grants cannot be charged here either, because they do not move an MBI toward accreditation.

On the institutional side, an applicant is out if it has had a break in extension of approval or no admissions at all in the last ten years. One proposal per institution is the rule, department-wise nominations are rejected outright, and an institute cannot apply if a sibling under the same management, board or parent trust is already functioning as a mentor. An institute whose only accredited courses are at UG level will not be considered for mentoring MBIs that are chasing PG accreditation.

Termination carries the heaviest exclusion of all. Where AICTE ends a nomination after adverse feedback from an associated MBI or adverse action, the institute must refund the unutilised balance with interest and is barred from seeking re-nomination for the next ten years (Margdarshan Scheme Guidelines, June 2023).

Continuation

Renewal conditions

A Margdarshan nomination is not renewed; it is completed. The three years and the grant attached to them end with a Scheme Completion Report, not with an application to carry on. The only extension the guidelines contemplate is a case-by-case one where an additional MBI is brought under an existing mentor, and that requires a fresh presentation and a supplementary project report for the added institute (AICTE Additional FAQs). An institute that wants to mentor again after its term simply applies again when AICTE next invites proposals.

What you get

Award & benefits

AICTE calls this a token grant and means it. The provision is Rs 3 lakh per mentee institute, so a mentor with the full complement of 10 draws a maximum of Rs 30 lakh across three years. Honorarium for the mentor's own staff, the Chief Coordinator included, is capped at 4 per cent of the total allotted grant. Resource persons who travel get AC 2-tier or chair car rail fare, or taxi rates as notified by the central or state government, plus an honorarium of Rs 3,000 per day, while lodging, boarding and secretarial support are borne by the host mentee institute (Margdarshan Scheme Guidelines, June 2023).

Visit days are rationed too. No mentee institute may absorb more than 50 days of visits by all of the mentor's resource persons over the life of the project, which caps the whole engagement at 500 days across 10 institutes (Margdarshan Scheme Guidelines, June 2023). What a mentor gets at the end of the three years beyond the money is a title: AICTE's presentation on the initiative names a "Protshahan Mitra" recognition for a mentor institute that successfully takes all 10 of its mentees to NBA accreditation, though the June 2023 guidelines do not mention it (Margdarshan Initiative presentation).

Money arrives in four tranches, each unlocked by an outcome rather than by a date.

Two different grant figures are live on AICTE's own site, and an applicant budgeting off the wrong one will be short. The Margdarshak Cell page still describes limited funds of Rs 50 lakhs to mentor institutes at Rs 5 lakhs per institute (AICTE Margdarshak Cell), and AICTE's Additional FAQs sheet answers the same question with Rs 5 Lakhs per MBI and a first instalment of 65% (AICTE Additional FAQs). Both cite the earlier revised guideline. The June 2023 document supersedes it.

• For Margdarshan Institute or Mentor Institute(MI): The Council has made provisions of a token grant in aid of ₹ 3,00,000/- per MBI. Hence a maximum ₹ 30,00,000/- can be sanctioned to an MI for conducting activities under the Margdarshan Scheme for 10 MBIs altogether.
• Suitable honorarium to staff (Chief Coordinator, supporting persons, etc.) engaged in running the scheme. Such expenditure should be booked under the Heads 'Honorarium for MI Staff'. The maximum honorarium shall, however, be limited to 4% of the overall grant as allotted.
• ItemFor any Serving/Retired Academician as Internal Experts of MIs.RemarksTravel Allowances (TA)(1)AC 2 tier accommodation / Chair Car when travelling by train (2) By own car / taxi limited to maximum of the prevailing rates of taxi notified by Central / State Government as applicable in the area from time to time.Payment of TA charges & honorarium will be done through respective MIs. Out of grant-inaid released by AICTEHonorarium₹ 3,000/- per day-Local SupportLocal support includes utilities such as local lodging, boarding, secretarial support, working office, other utilities etc. shall be provide by the host MBI when such experts visit the institute.-
• Note: It is clarified that overall expenditure shall not exceed the funds sanctioned/ allotted to the MI. No reimbursement shall be made for expenditure exceeding the given amount.
• For Mentee Beneficiary Institute (MBI): All activities should be mutually coordinated between the MIs and the associated MBIs to derive maximum benefi and for the betterment of the MBIs to a standard for seeking accreditation. A suggested list of activities is as follows:
• General: Workshop on Accreditation process, SWOT analysis for MBIs.
• FDPs/ Workshop on generation & submission of infrastructure project through various state/ central schemes.
• Workshop on Promoting Research, Consultancy, Industrial Projects etc.
• Guest lectures on Faculty motivation
• Institutional visit at MI or other Accredited institutes
• Benchmarking exercise with discussion on programme/department wise target for achieving Accreditation.
• Guest lectures on Innovation, start-up & entrepreneurship environment for faculty and students.
• Workshops on modifications of curriculum, new teaching- learning process etc that aids in OBE.
• Mapping of the activities with the Graduate Aptitudes must be clearly done.
• Workshops on various initiatives of AICTE for spreading awareness for better development of institution, faculty and students.
• FDPs/ Workshops on parameters of NIRF ranking.
• Institutional Reforms: Implementation of curricular reforms and development.
• Improve student performance and evaluation.
• Implement performance appraisal of faculty by students.
• Facilitating Guest/Special lectures.
• Assisting institute to organise faculty development programmes.
• Research interaction and innovation with faculty & students.
• Focus on Technical and life skill encouragement.
• Assist faculty in enhancing Outcome based education.
• Quality Improvement: Improving student learning.
• Improving student employability.
• Increasing faculty productivity and motivation through professional development.
• Increase in the average score of students participating in tests designed to measure technical and critical thinking skills.
• Percentage of sanctioned faculty positions in participating institutions submitted by regular or contract faculty as per AICTE norms.
• Increase in number of Faculty Trained in either their subject domain, pedagogy or management.
• Participation of institutes in newly designed research-hub related activities.
• Increase in average satisfaction level of the Student, Staff and Faculty.

What to prepare

Documents required

The application is the Detailed Project Report, and it runs in four sections that have to be assembled in parallel rather than in sequence. Section 1 is the mentor's own record: year of establishment, last extension of approval letter, programme-wise approved intake, how many programmes hold accreditation and how many of those stay valid for six more months, and the Chief Coordinator's PhD status, total experience and any service on NAAC or NBA expert committees. Section 2 repeats a block for every proposed mentee, with distance in kilometres, the lead coordinator's contact details, three years of admission and enrolment figures, and a programme-wise pre-qualifier assessment. Section 3 lists planned activities with timelines, the expenditure against each and a written justification. Section 4 carries the undertakings (DPR format).

Three of those undertakings come from outside the applicant and take the longest to collect: a consent letter from each proposed mentee on its own letterhead, a certificate of affiliation from each mentee's university, and a declaration that the mentor and the mentee share no management, board or trust. The mandate form is the standard AICTE annexure, with one trap of its own: the Council notes on the form that the name of the institute and the name of the account holder have to be identical or the remittance will not go through. Every page has to carry the signature and stamp of the head of the institute along with the AICTE Permanent ID.

Step by step

How to apply

A proposal can only be sent when AICTE calls for one. The Council invites project proposals under the Margdarshan Initiative from time to time, and between calls its institutional development schemes page keeps the scheme document and the DPR format up, next to an offer of a Google Form for registration for 2023-24 whose link no longer goes anywhere (AICTE institutional development schemes). The route that has always worked here is the offline one: a signed forwarding letter from the head of the institute with the DPR attached, dispatched to the address named in the circular that opens the round.

Margdarshan pays no direct benefit transfer, so it has no National Scholarship Portal record, no institutional login and no tracking screen of any kind. Progress arrives as a sequence of events instead. A shortlisted proposal is signalled by a call for the Chief Coordinator to present at AICTE in person. Selection is confirmed by the nomination, and the sanction letter that follows carries the file number and date that the Annual Progress Report and every Utilisation Certificate have to quote back. The first release lands by RTGS in the account given on the mandate form, and each later instalment is triggered by the mentees hitting a milestone plus 90 per cent utilisation of the previous tranche, so a mentor institute reads its own accounts and its mentees' pre-qualifier and Self-Assessment Report submissions as the real status indicator (Margdarshan Scheme Guidelines, June 2023). Publicly, the only running tally AICTE puts out is the present-status sheet it links from the Margdarshak Cell page (AICTE Margdarshak Cell).

How winners are picked

Selection process

Selection is a two-stage filter with a presentation at the centre of it. AICTE screens the submitted proposals first, then invites the Chief Coordinators of the shortlisted projects to present before an expert committee made up of senior academicians or other members the Council nominates, and the final selection follows that interaction (Margdarshan Scheme Guidelines, June 2023).

That makes the Chief Coordinator part of what is being assessed. The role has to be filled by a full-time senior faculty member of the mentor institute who is available in person at AICTE while the nomination is being finalised, and the DPR asks separately for that person's doctorate, years of experience and expert-committee history. The institutional credentials the form collects point the same way: last NIRF ranking, sponsored research projects, conferences organised, an industry-sponsored lab, an incubation and innovation cell, an IPR cell, and whatever else the mentor is offering to open up to its mentees.

Fine print

Terms & conditions

The memorandum of understanding between mentor and mentee is an academic instrument only. AICTE does not approve any financial transaction arising out of it, and the rest of its terms are left to the two institutes to settle between themselves. Nomination as a Mentor Institute confers no ex-officio appointment, and the Council keeps the right to order an enquiry or act against any mentor found to be indulging in malpractice.

Money that does not get spent goes back. Any unutilised amount, together with the interest earned on the grant since the first instalment was credited, is returned to AICTE with the Scheme Completion Report, and the grant may not be used for any purpose other than the one it was sanctioned for.

Changes to the arrangement are hard on purpose. AICTE does not ordinarily allow an MBI to be added, dropped or swapped, including where the mentee itself wants to withdraw, and a request to change a counterpart is entertained only once, within the first three months of mapping, and only with reasons. The one rescue the Council reserves is for a mentee left stranded: where a mentor shuts down before its term ends, AICTE may step in to have another mentor in the vicinity adopt that MBI, and only while 18 months of the project have still not passed. Where a coordinator has to be replaced at either end, the outgoing and incoming holders must overlap for at least 14 days, with a written record that shows up in the Annual Progress Report (Margdarshan Scheme Guidelines, June 2023).

Get help

Contact

Margdarshan has no helpline and no mailbox of its own; the only email AICTE attaches to the initiative anywhere is the media officer's, on its presentation deck (Margdarshan Initiative presentation). The scheme's home on the web is the Margdarshak Cell page, which keeps all five of its papers in one row (the scheme document, the flip book, the present-status sheet, the Additional FAQs and the presentation), and correspondence goes to the Council at Nelson Mandela Marg, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi 110070, phone 011-2958 1050 (AICTE Margdarshak Cell).

Source

Official links

Frequently asked questions

From the official scheme FAQ (myScheme)

Read this

Disclaimer

Disclaimer

Scheme details are compiled from myScheme, the Government of India’s official scheme-discovery platform, and are reproduced without alteration. Amounts, deadlines and eligibility change between cycles, so always confirm on the official links above before applying. Expertie does not process applications or charge fees.

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