AICTE - YOUTH UNDERTAKING VISIT FOR ACQUIRING KNOWLEDGE (YUVAK): STUDY TOUR OF ATAL TUNNEL, HIMACHAL PRADESH(AYUVFAK)

Overview

About AYUVFAK

A student named to a YUVAK team is handed a place on a train, not a transfer. AICTE sanctions the grant to the institute, for a party of 10 students and 1 faculty member, against three named heads of expenditure: rail fare to Chandigarh and back, road transport on to Manali and the tunnel, and boarding at Manali for 3 days (AICTE YUVAK scheme document). The journey, the stay and the visit are what a selected student receives, bought and accounted for by the college.

The subject is the Atal Tunnel under the Rohtang Pass, and AICTE's interest in it is technical rather than scenic. The scheme document sends students to look at the New Austrian tunnelling method, at how a bore driven from both ends was held in alignment, and at the avalanche sites on the approach roads.

AICTE launched YUVAK on 21 May 2021, jointly with Lt Gen Rajeev Chaudhry, then Director General of the Border Roads Organisation, whose engineers built the tunnel (AICTE press release). One call for applications followed. One list of selected institutes followed that, published in September 2021 for financial year 2021-2022 (list of institutes selected for the study tour). No second call, no second list and no revision of the scheme document has appeared since, and the study tour is missing from the scheme listings AICTE maintains today; what still carries it is an older students development page holding the same scheme document, application form, mandate form and list (AICTE students development schemes page). The myScheme entry is still open with no closing date, which is the reason searchers keep arriving expecting a live window. Read what follows as the record of a round that has closed.

Who runs it

Provider

At a glance

Key details

Calendar

Important dates

The extension bulletin went up on the day the window was due to shut and carries no revised date, only a same-day expiry, so the closing date on record is the one the press release printed. Nothing has been added to that timeline since the selected list.

Who can apply

Eligibility criteria

The portal carries two eligibility lines and leaves out the two conditions that actually decided who could stand in a team photograph. The scheme document restricts the students to regular second and third year B.E., B.Tech or integrated M.Tech candidates in civil, mechanical or structural engineering, and requires a minimum CGPA of 8.5 in the previous semester (AICTE YUVAK scheme document). A first-year student, a final-year student and a computer science topper were all outside it.

The institutional test is a rank, not approval alone. Only AICTE approved technical institutions holding a NIRF ranking between 001 and 500 qualified, and the call fixed that on the ranking for the year 2020 (AICTE notification). Each eligible institute could send one team, of ten students with one faculty member as leader.

That faculty member is not a chaperone the college picks the week before. The application form asks for the leader's name, faculty ID, designation and department before AICTE screens anything (application form).

Who cannot apply

Exclusions

Four of the scheme's own conditions do the work an exclusion list usually does. A college outside the NIRF top 500 could not apply. A student below 8.5 CGPA could not be named on the team. A student outside the second and third years of a civil, mechanical or structural programme could not be named either. And an institute whose proposal had been accepted was done: the processing rules allow only one proposal per institute for the entire duration of the scheme (AICTE YUVAK scheme document).

There is no income test, no category test and no bar on holding another award, because the money is institutional and the student is a nominee rather than an applicant.

Continuation

Renewal conditions

A study tour happens once, and the one-proposal rule closes the door behind it. The selection ceilings are written per financial year, so those reset; the one-proposal-per-institute rule is not written that way and does not reset, which leaves a funded college outside the scheme for whatever remained of its life (AICTE YUVAK scheme document).

What you get

Award & benefits

The grant is built head by head rather than as a per-student stipend, and the sanctioned amount depends on where the college sits.

Geography changes exactly one line of that table. Institutes under the Northern and North-West regional offices are allowed half the train fare that institutes elsewhere are allowed, and every head after Chandigarh is the same figure wherever the team boarded. The scheme document sets the two rates and gives no reason for the split.

Payment arrives in two parts, and the second is conditional. AICTE releases 50% of the grant once the institute submits a finalised itinerary and schedule for the tour. The balance follows a tour report and a utilisation certificate audited by a chartered accountant, submitted within one month of the tour ending, and it is capped at the lower of the remaining 50% or the total expenditure minus what has already been paid (AICTE YUVAK scheme document). A college that runs the tour cheaply does not keep the difference.

One selected institute has put the outcome on the record. Jamia Millia Islamia states that AICTE sanctioned and granted Rs 1.70 lakh to its Department of Civil Engineering under YUVAK for 10 students and 1 faculty member, and that the team completed the study tour between 23 June and 28 June 2022 (Jamia Millia Islamia civil engineering event record). That is the lower of the two totals, which matches its place in the northern table of the selected list (list of institutes selected for the study tour).

• Grant will be for Team of 10 Students + 1 Faculty member of the Institute as per details below:
• S.No.Expenditure HeadsFor Institutes under NRO & NWROFor Institutes under Other Regions1.Train Fare from Institute to Chandigarh & back₹ 30,000/-₹ 60,000/-2.Transport charges from Chandigarh to Manali (including visits to ATAL Tunnel) & back₹ 30,000/-₹ 30,000/-3.Boarding & Lodging and incidental expenses at Manali for 03 days ₹ 1,10,000/-₹ 1,10,000/-Total Grant Amount :₹ 1,70,000/-₹ 2,00,000/-

What to prepare

Documents required

The three-line document list on the portal is the application form's three sections and nothing more. The form asks for the institute's name, AICTE regional office, NIRF ranking, institute ID and address, and the Principal or Director's landline, mobile number and email; the team leader's name, faculty ID, designation and department; and for each of the ten students a student ID, the year of study, the course and branch, the present CGPA, the grade in the last semester, a mobile number and an email (application form).

Because the grant moves by RTGS, a separate mandate form carries the institute's PID, PAN, the account holder's name, the bank and branch, the account number and the IFSC code, signed by the account holder (mandate form). An institute with stale bank details on file has a problem the student cannot solve.

Step by step

How to apply

The institute applies and the student files nothing. AICTE's notification pointed applicants to a Google Form rather than to a scheme portal, and asked for submission by 5 PM on the closing day (AICTE notification). The myScheme entry records the application mode as offline with no application link, which is at odds with the Council's own notification and with the scheme document's own line about online submission; the notification is the document that ran the round.

Applications were screened at Council level and a selected institute was informed by an offer letter sent to it by email. AICTE put it plainly in the scheme document: submitting an application does not by itself mean AICTE has approved it.

Tracking runs into the limits of the form that was used. A Google Form issues no login, no acknowledgement number and no screen to sign back into, so an institute that pressed submit had nothing to refresh. The answer reached it in two places instead. The first was the mailbox of the Principal or Director whose email went on the application form, which is where the offer letter was addressed. The second was the list AICTE published on its own website, which names each selected institute beside its AICTE regional office and institute ID (list of institutes selected for the study tour). A student who wants to know where a nomination stands has to ask the department that filed it, because AICTE never published a student-facing route to that answer.

How winners are picked

Selection process

Selection is by rank, not by a written case. AICTE set a ceiling of 25 institutes from the Northern and North-West regional office areas and 75 from the remaining regions in a financial year, to be chosen on the basis of their NIRF ranking (AICTE YUVAK scheme document). Nothing in the process rewards a better-argued proposal.

The published outcome did not use both ceilings the same way. The list for 2021-2022 names 90 institutes across two tables: 15 under the Northern and North-West regional offices, and 75 from every other region (list of institutes selected for the study tour). The second ceiling was reached exactly and the first was not, and the list does not say why: AICTE published names, not application counts, so whether too few northern institutes applied or too few cleared the rank and CGPA tests is not on the record. The second table itself runs through the Chennai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bhopal, Guwahati and Thiruvananthapuram regional offices.

Fine print

Terms & conditions

The certificate at the foot of the application form is the sharp edge. The Head of the Institution certifies that the details are correct, undertakes to be legally liable to reimburse the entire amount to the Council if any of it is later found incorrect, undertakes to use the money only for the purpose for which it was requested, and agrees to abide by all of the Council's decisions (application form).

Two more conditions sit in the scheme document. The tour is fixed at 3 days at Manali, excluding the journey each way, so a college cannot lengthen the stay and bill the difference. And the settlement is audited: the utilisation certificate has to be signed off by a chartered accountant before the balance is released (AICTE YUVAK scheme document).

Get help

Contact

AICTE ran YUVAK through its Student Development Cell, the office that opened and closed the launch event and is named on the scheme's own papers (AICTE press release). The Council's head office address on those papers is Nelson Mandela Marg, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi. No scheme-specific helpline or mailbox was set up for YUVAK; the only address printed on the call for applications is the Member Secretary's, ms@aicte-india.org, on the letterhead (AICTE notification).

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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