Centrally Sponsored Scheme of Upgradation of Merit of Scheduled Caste Students(CSS-UMSCS)

Overview

About CSS-UMSCS

No Scheduled Caste student applies for this scheme on a portal. The state government picks a set of schools, the Centre fixes how many awards each state gets, and the state then decides which SC students in those schools receive four years of coaching paid for entirely by the Centre.

The numbers are small. The ministry caps fresh intake at 2,050 students a year across 19 States and UTs, and it applies a parental income limit of Rs 3 lakh that the myScheme listing leaves out (Department of Social Justice and Empowerment).

The Centrally Sponsored Scheme of Upgradation of Merit of Scheduled Caste Students pays for coaching on top of ordinary schooling; no line of its package is for tuition fees. Remedial coaching fills gaps in school subjects, and special coaching prepares students in classes IX to XII for engineering and medical entrance examinations. The Ministry of Human Resource Development started it in 1987-88 and transferred it to the Ministry of Welfare in 1993-94. It now sits with the Department of Social Justice and Empowerment (Department of Social Justice and Empowerment).

The revised scheme document states its reasoning plainly. Seats reserved for SC students in engineering and medical courses stay under-utilised because students reach them underprepared, and some who get in on relaxed eligibility struggle to finish on time (scheme guidelines). Its answer is four years of coaching inside a school the state has chosen, starting at class IX.

Labels differ between official copies. The ministry's document calls it a Centrally Sponsored Scheme, while the text copy on the Haryana department's website is headed Central Sector Scheme (Haryana copy of the guidelines). Under both, the Centre meets the whole cost and the state selects the schools and the students.

The Department of Social Justice and Empowerment's Notes on Demands for Grants for 2026-27 carry no line under this scheme's name. The SC student schemes that document does list are Post Matric Scholarship for SCs, Pre Matric Scholarship for SCs and Others, the four SHREYAS for SCs sub-schemes and SRESHTA for SCs (Notes on Demands for Grants 2026-27). It says nothing else about this scheme, while the ministry's scheme page still describes it as presently implemented in 19 States/UTs (Department of Social Justice and Empowerment). Your state's SC welfare department is the office that can say whether a class IX batch is being taken this year.

Who runs it

Provider

At a glance

Key details

Calendar

Important dates

Neither the Ministry nor myScheme publishes an application window or a last date; the intake point is the class IX batch each state takes in, and the student-side allowances are reckoned for 10 months a year (Department of Social Justice and Empowerment).

Who can apply

Eligibility criteria

Being an SC student in classes IX to XII is only the starting point. Three further tests decide whether the scheme can reach a particular child: the state, the district and the family's income.

The income test comes from the ministry rather than from myScheme. Parental income from all sources must not exceed Rs 3 lakh a year (Department of Social Justice and Empowerment; MyGov scheme summary).

The district test has applied to new students since the selection year 2014-15. As far as possible, states pick two or three districts with the highest SC population that are also identified as Educationally Backward Districts, with priority to those with lower literacy rates (Haryana copy of the guidelines).

Which States Have Slots

The state test is fixed in advance: the guidelines' annexure allots every award to a named State or UT. The table lists the 19 States and UTs in order of the slots each was allotted.

Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Odisha, Telangana and Delhi do not appear in the annexure at all. The Uttarakhand figure needs one caution: the Haryana text copy prints 7 against it (Haryana copy of the guidelines), but the ministry's scanned original shows 18, and only 18 brings the column to the stated total of 2,050 (ministry's scanned guidelines, Annexure).

Who cannot apply

Exclusions

myScheme publishes no exclusion list, but the guidelines close several doors by design. A student is outside the scheme in these situations:

• Enrolled in a school the state has not selected. The award exists only in the schools the state chose and reported to the Ministry (Haryana copy of the guidelines).
• Living in a state missing from the annexure, which has no allotment to give.
• From a family earning above Rs 3 lakh a year (Department of Social Justice and Empowerment).
• A new entrant from outside the selected districts, for selections since 2014-15, as far as the state can manage it (Haryana copy of the guidelines).
• Joining in class XII. Entry is at class IX, and class X or XI only for a student who missed class IX and did excellently in the previous examination; the guidelines make no provision for starting in the final year.

Continuation

Renewal conditions

There is no yearly renewal form. The award runs as one continuous stretch from class IX to class XII, and the guidelines show the arithmetic: as one batch enters class IX the class XII batch leaves, so a state with 5 awards carries 20 students across the four classes at any time (Haryana copy of the guidelines).

Continuing depends on what the school sees. The conditions on the myScheme record ask for regular attendance and academic performance, and the state must send the Ministry a report on these students' performance when it seeks fresh grants. The guidelines set no marks cut-off for staying on. Students already on the scheme in classes X to XII when the district rules changed were allowed to continue wherever their school stood (Haryana copy of the guidelines).

What you get

Award & benefits

The package is Rs 25,000 per student per year, but not all of it is the student's money. Rs 10,000 of it is for the honorarium to the principal, the experts and incidental charges, money meant for running the coaching rather than for the student. Of the remaining Rs 15,000, the Rs 9,000 boarding and lodging line is payable only to students in residential schools, so a day scholar's own benefit is Rs 3,000 of pocket money and Rs 3,000 for books and stationery, plus any disability allowance that applies (Department of Social Justice and Empowerment).

The Centre funds all of it, and states bear no share. The money can reach the beneficiaries, the institutions, or both, either transferred directly by the Ministry or paid out by the state (scheme guidelines).

What the Coaching Looks Like

Remedial coaching happens after school hours throughout classes IX to XII and concentrates on language skills, science and mathematics, the areas the guidelines blame for most gaps. Each coaching teacher is expected to give not less than 10 to 12 hours a week, drawn first from the selected school's own staff (Haryana copy of the guidelines).

Entrance preparation is scheduled separately. Special coaching runs on Sundays, holidays and summer and winter vacations, at centrally placed schools where class XI and XII students from nearby participating schools gather, with syllabi drawn up with experts and faculty invited from nearby professional institutions. A student can take both kinds (Haryana copy of the guidelines).

• ₹25,000/- per student per year with the following breakdown: _₹15,000/- per student per year comprising -_
• Boarding and Lodging Charges: ₹900/- per month for 10 months = ₹9,000/- (for residential school students only)
• Pocket Money: ₹300/- per month for 10 months = ₹3,000/-
• Books and Stationery: ₹3,000/-
• _₹10,000/- per year per student -_
• For honorarium to Principal, Experts and other incidental charges.
• Additional Benefits for Students with Disabilities
• _Reader Allowance:_ ₹200/- per month for blind students in classes IX to XII.- _Transport Allowance:_ ₹100/- per month for disabled students not residing in hostel within educational institution premises.- _Special Pay:_ ₹200/- per month for hostel employees assisting severely orthopaedically handicapped students.- _Escort Allowance:_ ₹100/- per month for severely handicapped day scholar students with lower extremity disability.- _Allowance:_ ₹200/- per month towards extra coaching for mentally retarded and mentally ill students in classes IX to XII.
• Students must maintain regular attendance and academic performance as monitored by school authorities.
• Students must complete the full coaching program from Class IX to XII to derive maximum benefit.
• Compliance with the transparent selection and monitoring process established by State Governments.

What to prepare

Documents required

The myScheme list covers caste, school and identity papers. Two practical additions follow from the rules rather than from that list.

Keep an income certificate ready: the Rs 3 lakh ceiling applies, yet the myScheme list does not name any income proof (Department of Social Justice and Empowerment). The state must also build its beneficiary database with Aadhaar numbers and credit the money to UIDAI-enabled bank accounts, so expect to be asked for an Aadhaar number and an Aadhaar-linked bank account (Haryana copy of the guidelines). For the disability allowances, the guidelines identify disability under the Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, 1995.

Step by step

How to apply

There is no portal, online form or application link, and the CSS-UMSCS listing on myScheme is marked Offline (myScheme), because awards are made only inside schools the state has already picked. Reaching the scheme means reaching one of those schools:

1. Find your state in the annexure table under Eligibility. If it is not there, the scheme has nothing to allot.
2. Ask the district office of your state's SC or social welfare department which schools it has selected, since states choose them and report them to the Ministry.
3. Secure class IX admission in one of those schools, where the state makes the selection and must keep it transparent and fair (Haryana copy of the guidelines).
4. Give the school the caste certificate, income certificate and Aadhaar-linked bank details, so the student can go on the state's digitised beneficiary list.

Tracking the Award and the Payment

Selection first, money second. The guidelines require each state to display an institution-wise list of awardees on the NIC website at the district level, which is where a family can confirm the student was picked (Haryana copy of the guidelines).

Payment goes by Direct Benefit Transfer (Haryana copy of the guidelines), and the Public Financial Management System keeps a scheme entry for Upgradation of Merit of SC Students in its scholarship module (PFMS scheme information). Because this scheme's money can be credited to the student, to the school or to both, look up the student's own account on the PFMS Know Your Payment page, which takes the bank's name and the account number typed twice (PFMS Know Your Payment). A complaint about a missing payment goes to the Grievance Redressal Officers every state must designate at the state and district levels (Haryana copy of the guidelines).

How winners are picked

Selection process

The Centre fixes each state's number of awards and leaves the rest to the state. The guidelines ask for schools with hostel facilities and consistently good results, favour good rural schools, allow Kendriya Vidyalayas with hostels, and want schools where SC students "will feel at home". A state may use as many schools as it likes but may not exceed its annual allotment (Haryana copy of the guidelines).

Students are picked at the state's discretion, subject to transparency and fairness. No entrance test, merit list or marks threshold is prescribed for entry at class IX; the only test of a student's own performance in the guidelines applies to late entry at class X or XI (Haryana copy of the guidelines).

Fine print

Terms & conditions

Money given under the scheme cannot be used for any other purpose, and states report beneficiaries and spending to the Centre through Quarterly Progress Reports (Haryana copy of the guidelines).

A state that does not ask can lose its share. If a state sends no proposal, the funds earmarked for it are likely to lapse, and the Ministry keeps a cushion of at least 10% of the allocation to divert money to states with higher demand. The guidelines also allow the package to be revised every two years against the Consumer Price Index for Industrial Workers; the figure on the ministry's scheme page today is Rs 25,000 (Haryana copy of the guidelines; Department of Social Justice and Empowerment).

Get help

Contact

No helpline is published for this scheme alone. The first office to approach is your state's SC welfare department, which selects the schools; Haryana's SEWA department, for example, lists the scheme among its centrally sponsored schemes (Haryana SEWA department). For the Centre's side, such as whether your state sent the proposal that keeps its slots funded, the Department's website prints a toll-free number, 18002021989, at the top of the scheme's page (Department of Social Justice and Empowerment).

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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