Central Sector Scheme of National Fellowship for Providing Fellowship to Scheduled Caste Students to Pursue M.Phil. & PhD(CCSNFPFSCSMAP)

Overview

About CCSNFPFSCSMAP

NSFDC published the selection under the National Fellowship for Scheduled Caste Students for the UGC NET December 2025 examination on 1 September 2026, and 818 roll numbers are on it (NSFDC selection list, UGC NET December 2025). No fellowship application decided who is on that page. A subject-wise cut-off drawn off a result sheet did, months earlier, and everything a selected scholar does afterwards is portal work done with a university nodal officer.

This is a Central Sector Scheme funded by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, and the office that runs it is not the one older write-ups name. NSFDC was declared the Central Nodal Agency for implementing the scheme with effect from 1 October 2022, and lays down the implementation procedure, the selection of beneficiaries and the disbursement (NFSC guidelines). The scheme record reproduced below still names UGC as the nodal agency; that arrangement has been superseded.

The Rajiv Gandhi name belongs to the same fellowship. UGC published its Scheduled Caste award list under a heading carrying both titles, the current one and the former Rajiv Gandhi National Fellowship for SC Candidates (UGC revised selection list), so a page written about RGNF for SC scholars is describing this scheme at an earlier point in its life, not a separate award still open somewhere.

The plumbing underneath is the UGC-Canara Bank scholarship management system, which handles this fellowship alongside the other research awards administered on the same platform (SFMP user manual), which is why a scholar's day-to-day dealings are with a bank portal and a university nodal officer rather than with a ministry.

Administratively the department files it as a sub-scheme of the central sector scheme SHREYAS-SC, with individual-level beneficiary records compiled by NSFDC from the Canara Bank portal and a monthly release calendar (SHREYAS-SC NFSC metadata).

The scheme's own title still carries M.Phil., and that half of it has quietly stopped meaning anything. UGC told universities that the M.Phil. degree is not a recognised degree, that Regulation No. 14 of its Ph.D. regulations bars higher educational institutions from offering the programme, and that admissions were to stop from the 2023-24 academic year (UGC public notice). The department's own account of the scheme now describes it as supporting Scheduled Caste students pursuing Ph.D. degrees (PIB Year End Review 2025). Read the M.Phil. rows in the guidelines as legacy provisions for scholars already inside them, not as a route anyone can join.

The scale is not small. Between January 2025 and November 2025 the department released Rs 218.43 crore under this fellowship to 4,153 Scheduled Caste beneficiaries (PIB Year End Review 2025).

Who runs it

Provider

At a glance

Key details

Calendar

Important dates

There is no NFSC form, and therefore no submission date to watch. Every date that binds a selected scholar sits downstream of the result.

Who can apply

Eligibility criteria

Three things decide it, and only three: the category, the test, and where the research will be done. A Scheduled Caste candidate has to hold a Junior Research Fellowship through UGC-NET or the Joint UGC-CSIR NET, and the M.Phil. or Ph.D. has to be regular and full time in an institution UGC recognises (NFSC guidelines). The recognition test is not a formality: the two university routes turn on valid NAAC accreditation, while a fully government-funded degree-awarding institution or an Institution of National Importance qualifies on status alone.

Two filters that gate most Scheduled Caste scholarships are simply absent here. The guidelines prescribe neither a family income limit nor a minimum post-graduation percentage (NFSC guidelines). The NET result is doing all of the filtering.

One more field decides which queue you stand in. The guidelines direct that the application capture the candidate's current educational status, and preference goes to candidates who have already secured admission (NFSC guidelines). NSFDC turns that into two separate cut-offs published side by side for the same subject, one for candidates recorded as pursuing and one for candidates recorded as passed or final year, with a further split for PwD candidates inside each (NSFDC subject-wise cut-off, UGC NET December 2025).

Who cannot apply

Exclusions

Beyond the disqualifications the scheme record lists, two things end a claim that looked secure.

The first is a selection list being withdrawn. NSFDC has cancelled a published NFSC selection list before, for the UGC NET June 2024 cycle, and issued a revised list of eligible candidates and a revised cut-off in its place (NSFDC NFSC page). Being named once is not the end of the matter.

The second is the declaration itself. Selection is provisional, subject to the eligibility conditions being met, and NSFDC states that where any information is found false or concealed the candidate is liable to be denied the fellowship even after the selection notification has been published (NSFDC selection list, UGC NET December 2025).

Continuation

Renewal conditions

No renewal application exists at any point in the five years. Continuation is a certification your university files, and the step from Junior to Senior Research Fellow comes after two years on an assessment that the research progress is satisfactory (NFSC guidelines).

The part scholars rarely see is monthly. The institution has to confirm, scheme by scheme and month by month, the list of candidates for whom the fellowship is to be disbursed, and that option stays open to universities only up to the 15th of every month; the same portal carries a stop-payment marking the institution can set with no approval needed (SFMP user manual). So a fellowship can pause for a reason that has nothing to do with your thesis. Medical facilities and leave, maternity leave included, are governed by UGC's rules for its own fellowship programme rather than by a separate NFSC rulebook (NFSC guidelines).

What you get

Award & benefits

The stipend is not this scheme's own number. It is tied to what UGC pays its research fellows, and the rate table sitting inside the scheme document goes back to a notification dated 1 January 2019 (NFSC guidelines). That table is no longer what a scholar draws.

What is drawn now is a ministry-approved revision NSFDC issued as a public notice of its own: Rs 37,000 a month as JRF and Rs 42,000 a month as SRF, applicable with effect from 1 January 2023 (NSFDC public notice on revision of fellowship rates, 25 October 2023). The department records the same revised figures against this scheme (PIB, Key Initiatives and Achievements 2023). The rate card reproduced below is the older one.

House rent allowance has moved on separately. The guidelines print it at 8%, 16% and 24% for scholars who are not given hostel accommodation, and a scholar who refuses an offered hostel seat forfeits the claim altogether (NFSC guidelines). NSFDC has since notified revised NFSC HRA slabs effective from 01.01.2024 and keeps that notice on its NFSC page (NSFDC NFSC page), so the slab to work from is the one on that notice rather than the percentages in the record below, and the claim is filed on the portal by your nodal officer rather than by you.

What the money looks like in aggregate says more about the scheme's reach than any single rate does.

• The scheme provides for 2000 new Fellowships (1500 Junior Research Fellows for Humanities/ Social Sciences and 500 Junior Research Fellows for Science stream) per year.
• These slots are over and above the number of SC students selected under the normal reservation policy of the Government for UGC Fellowships.
• The fellowship shall be paid from the date of issue of the JRF award letter under the Scheme for National Fellowship or the date of joining the M.Phil./Ph.D., whichever is later.
• The fellowship shall be granted upto the date of submission of the Ph.D. thesis or five years of tenure, whichever is earlier. No extension is permissible beyond the total period of five years of fellowship.
• Confirmation for continuation of the fellowship shall be given by the University twice a year on a semester basis within the 10th of the initial month of the semester. Based on this certification, the research scholars would be released the fellowship within the 15th of every month without any further intervention of the university.
• With regard to the combined course of M.Phil and PhD, Fellowship will be provided initially for 02 years for M.Phil and after upgradation to Ph.D course, for another 03 years.
• In case of integrated Ph.D. or M.Phil. to Ph.D., the maximum tenure is 5 years including the M.Phil. period of fellowship. For doing M.Phil., fellowship shall be granted for two years or upto the date of submission of the M.Phil. dissertation, whichever is earlier.
• Duration of the Fellowship
• Name of the Course: M.Phil; Maximum Duration: 2 Years; Admissibility for JRF: 2 Years; Admissibility for SRF: NIL
• Name of the Course: PhD; Maximum Duration: 5 Years; Admissibility for JRF: 2 Years; Admissibility for SRF: Remaining 3 Years
• Name of the Course: M.Phil + PhD; Maximum Duration: 5 Years; Admissibility for JRF: 2 Years; Admissibility for SRF: Remaining 3 Years
• Head: Fellowship in All Streams
• Rate Applicable for JRF: ₹ 31,000/- p.m. for initial two years
• Rate Applicable for SRF: ₹35,000/-p.m. for remaining tenure
• Head: Contingency for Humanities & Social Sciences
• Rate Applicable for JRF: ₹10,000/- p.a. for initial two years
• Rate Applicable for SRF: ₹20,500/- p.a. for remaining tenure
• Head: Contingency for Sciences
• Rate Applicable for JRF: ₹12,000/- p.a. for initial two years
• Rate Applicable for SRF: ₹25,000/-p.a. for remaining tenure.
• Head: Escort/ Reader Assistance (All Subjects) for Physically and Visually Handicapped Candidates
• Rate Applicable for JRF: ₹2,000/-p.m.
• Rate Applicable for SRF: ₹ 2,000/-p.m.
• Head: House Rent Allowance (HRA)
• Rate Applicable: 8%, 16% and 24% to those students who are not provided with hostel accommodation, in accordance with Govt. of India norms as applicable in the city/location where the research fellows are working.
• The disbursal of the fellowship will be directly into the beneficiary's Aadhaar-linked Bank Account via Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT).

What to prepare

Documents required

The paperwork listed on this page is collected once and mostly proves who you are. Two items in it do real work. The caste certificate has to be issued by a competent authority and its genuineness is verified by your own university or institution before you are allowed to draw anything, and the declaration the guidelines require is an undertaking that you will not accept any other scholarship, fellowship or monetary benefit while this one runs (NFSC guidelines).

Beyond that, the forms are cycle-specific rather than universal: NSFDC publishes the verification-cum-joining report format and the JRF to SRF upgradation formats separately under each UGC NET and Joint CSIR UGC NET cycle, so the blank you need is the one filed under your own exam cycle (NSFDC NFSC page).

Step by step

How to apply

You apply by sitting an exam. Register with the National Testing Agency for UGC-NET or the Joint UGC-CSIR NET declaring the Scheduled Caste category, and if your score clears the NFSC cut-off for your subject and status, NSFDC names you in the eligible list and the award letter becomes downloadable from its NFSC page (NSFDC NFSC page).

Everything after that is a linking exercise between you, your university and the portal. The institution initiates the link between your Student ID and the portal, and that linking is presently allowed only within 24 months of the result or cut-off date for a fellowship scheme; beyond it the university has to raise an exception request. You then verify the data the university entered, and the university can submit for approval only after you have approved it or 24 hours have passed, whichever comes first. If a detail is wrong, reject the linking rather than letting it go through, because the university cannot change your details once they are submitted (SFMP user manual).

Checking Where Your Fellowship Has Reached

Tracking runs through the Scholar's Corner at scholarship.canarabank.in. Register there with the scheme name, the Student ID your university registered on the portal, your date of birth and the email address held against you at the university; a Find Student ID option exists for scholars who do not know the ID, and the password is mailed to that registered address. Once inside, the linking data the university entered is visible to you, and you approve or reject it from there (SFMP user manual).

If the problem is with the selection list itself rather than with payment, NSFDC opens a short verification window instead: candidates are advised to check their selection and report any discrepancy through a Google Form within 7 days of the list being published (NSFDC selection list, UGC NET December 2025).

How winners are picked

Selection process

NSFDC funds and pays, but it does not choose. Both of the things that decide a candidate's fate belong to the National Testing Agency: the merit ranking off the qualifying paper, and the line in marks or percentile drawn across it. The department's scheme page records that NSFDC has no part in either (Department of Social Justice and Empowerment).

How the slots are carved up is worth understanding before reading a cut-off. Of the fellowships available each year, 75% are allocated to UGC-NET-JRF and the remaining 25% to science-stream candidates through the Joint UGC-CSIR NET, unfilled slots on either side may be filled through the other test in the same academic year, and a shortfall of 25% or more triggers a review of the allocation in the following year (NFSC guidelines).

The December 2025 cycle shows what that produces on paper. NSFDC named 818 candidates as provisionally selected through the UGC NET December 2025 examination, and warns in the same notification that the number selected sometimes exceeds the allotted slots for an examination because several candidates end on similar marks or percentiles (NSFDC selection list, UGC NET December 2025).

The two status lists move independently, so there is no rule of thumb that one is easier than the other.

The science side is not comparable to those numbers at all, because the Joint CSIR UGC NET cut-off is published on a different scale entirely: for the same December 2025 cycle, Physical Science closed at 52.125 for candidates recorded as pursuing and Earth Science at 78.440 (NSFDC subject-wise cut-off, Joint CSIR UGC NET December 2025). A humanities scholar comparing a friend's science cut-off is comparing marks with a percentile.

Fine print

Terms & conditions

Selection is provisional until the eligibility conditions prescribed in the scheme guidelines are met, and NSFDC disclaims responsibility for any technical or typographical error in its notifications. Where a dispute arises, the notification states that the decision of the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment in all matters of dispute is final and binding (NSFDC selection list, UGC NET December 2025). On the award itself, the guidelines make NSFDC's decision final, with no appeal against it (NFSC guidelines).

Get help

Contact

Two published contacts sit behind this scheme and they answer different things: a fellowship query reaches NSFDC on 1800110396 and at nfsc.nsfdc@gmail.com (Department of Social Justice and Empowerment), while the notifications themselves, list and cut-off alike, are issued from the 14th floor, Core 1 and 2, SCOPE Minar, Laxmi Nagar District Centre, Delhi 110092 (NSFDC subject-wise cut-off, UGC NET December 2025). Anything to do with your marks or your place on the cut-off belongs with the National Testing Agency, which prepares both; anything to do with linking, joining or a missing monthly credit is faster through your own institution's nodal officer, because those are entries only the university can make.

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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References

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