Delhi Higher & Technical Education Support Scheme(DHTESS)

Overview

About DHTESS

The Delhi Higher & Technical Education Support Scheme pays one line of your fee bill and nothing else: the tuition fee of an undergraduate student at a government university, college or institution inside Delhi. Nothing is borrowed and nothing is repaid, which is the first thing to settle, because the Higher Education Department runs a loan guarantee scheme beside this one and the citizen portal lists the two together. Two numbers then decide most cases before anything else about you is read, a qualifying aggregate of 75 per cent and a family income ceiling of Rs 3 lakh. The third thing worth knowing early is that the portal you apply on still attaches the older scheme this one replaced.

The scheme runs under The Delhi Higher Education Aid Trust, and its guidelines describe it as a revision of the earlier Merit-cum-Means Income Linked Financial Assistance Scheme, brought in for all admissions from the 2022-2023 academic year onwards. The Trust administers it through the universities themselves rather than directly; the Directorate of Higher Education is the office above them that receives the verified lists and carries the funding proposal to the Trustees. There is no interest, no repayment schedule and no bank anywhere in that chain.

One parenthesis in the eligibility clause decides more applications than the merit and income tests put together. Enrolment has to be in a Delhi State Public University, college or institution located in Delhi, qualified as "Government ONLY", and a later condition repeats that the scheme is not applicable to students of self-financing institutes, which shuts out self-financed programmes running inside otherwise eligible campuses. The Delhi test is doubled as well: bona fide residence in Delhi and a Class XII pass from a recognised Delhi school, and one without the other does not qualify.

The money also does not reach you from the Directorate. It is released to your university, which transfers it into your Aadhaar-linked bank account by direct benefit transfer, so the final leg of the payment sits with your university's accounts office and not with the Trust.

What the scheme actually moves, and to how many students, is worth knowing before you count on it. In January 2026 the Delhi Government distributed Rs 25.25 crore to 1,709 students at a single event, reported under the name Delhi Higher and Technical Education Assistance Scheme, and that one release covered the academic years 2023-24 and 2024-25 together.

Who runs it

Provider

At a glance

Key details

Calendar

Important dates

There is no standing annual deadline attached to this scheme. The Directorate fixes a timeline for each academic year and the universities circulate it, which is why the dates you find depend on which university notice you are reading.

Read the years in that table again, because the gap between them is the thing to plan around. The round covering the 2023-2024 academic year was announced in mid-2025 and scheduled to pay out that September, and money for 2023-24 and 2024-25 was in fact still being handed over at a public event in January 2026. Delhi Technological University's 2025-2026 round moved faster, opening in May 2026 with the online form closing at the end of June and institute verification running into July, but the lag between a session and its money is the norm here rather than the exception.

Who can apply

Eligibility criteria

The merit bar is the condition applicants underestimate, because it does not stop at admission. The guidelines fix the qualifying aggregate at 75 per cent in the relevant stream in Class XII for first-year assistance, and at 75 per cent in the undergraduate course itself for every subsequent year, so a strong board result buys one year and no more. The Delhi Government has stated the same threshold publicly, describing an eligible student as one who has passed Class XII from a Delhi school with at least 75 per cent marks. A relaxation of 5% in that aggregate goes to SC and ST students, carried over unchanged from the scheme this one replaced, which asked 60% of everyone.

The income side is narrower than a single figure suggests. The ceiling is gross annual family income from all sources of up to Rs 3 lakh, and the proof is named rather than left open: a family income certificate issued by the SDM or competent authority of the Government of NCT of Delhi, valid at the time you apply. Neither the guidelines nor the university notices that implement them offer an alternative document in its place, which is why the certificate is the item to start on first.

Where a reader is most likely to be misled is the eligibility document e-District still attaches to this service. That attachment is the predecessor Merit-cum-Means Linked Financial Assistance Scheme, which sorted applicants into three income categories instead of one and covered colleges and institutes affiliated to Delhi State Public Universities rather than government institutions alone. Read it as background. The rules your college and university actually apply are the ones in the Directorate's own guidelines.

Who cannot apply

Exclusions

The scheme's public record publishes no exclusion list, so the disqualifications sit scattered through the guidelines instead of collected in one place. Distance and correspondence students are out, diploma students are out, and so is anyone availing financial assistance for the same course of study under any other scheme of any other agency or government.

That last bar is not taken on trust. You sign a declaration in the format the guidelines print as Annexure A, affirming that no other agency or government scheme is meeting the cost of your education, and the format is signed off by two witnesses who may not be your parents or members of your family.

Continuation

Renewal conditions

Renewal here is not a renewal at all. You apply afresh every academic year through the online portal, and the guidelines are blunt about the consequence of forgetting: a student who missed applying gets no financial assistance for the year not applied, with no back-dated claim afterwards.

Continuing years turn on clearing the course as well as reapplying for it. Assistance is limited to the number of years of the course duration, a student who has failed in any subject during the course of studies stops being eligible, and a student needing additional time to finish, repeaters of the first year included, gets nothing in the repeat year and beyond.

What you get

Award & benefits

The award is the tuition fee, in full, and only the tuition fee. The guidelines record the quantum of financial assistance as Tuition Fee ONLY per year and name no other head of the bill, so every other charge on your fee challan stays where it is.

It also settles as a reimbursement rather than an advance, which is why Delhi Technological University's scholarship notice asks applicants for the fee receipt of the academic year along with the rest of the file. You pay the university first, and the assistance follows.

That is a structural change from the scheme this one replaced, which paid a share of the tuition fee rather than all of it:

• Tuition Fee Assistance: Financial assistance covering the tuition fee for eligible undergraduate students.

What to prepare

Documents required

The list published with the scheme is a floor, and your institution builds on it. Delhi Technological University's notice for the 2025-2026 round asks for a copy of the online generated application, the Format A declaration produced during that application, a cancelled cheque or passbook for an account held in the student's own name and running as a major account, and the fee receipt for the academic year, with the originals carried to window number 6 of the Academic-UG section for cross verification.

Two of those trip people up. The bank account has to be the student's own and has to be a major account, so a parent's account, or one still operating under minor status, fails the test. And the Class XII marksheet answers only for a first-year applicant: students in later years are asked instead for the mark sheets of both previous semesters from the university they are currently enrolled in.

Step by step

How to apply

Applications run on the Delhi Government's e-District portal, where the scheme sits under Higher Education, and the guidelines pair the online form with a hard copy submitted to your university, college or institute. Filing online and stopping there leaves the application incomplete.

What follows is a chain of verifications, and knowing its order tells you whom to chase. Your college or institute verifies the application and forwards it to the university with a recommendation. The university verifies what it receives and sends the eligible applications on to the Directorate along with a funds demand. The Directorate then puts a formal proposal to the Trustees of The Delhi Higher Education Aid Trust for approval and release of funds to the universities, which pay the students. The guidelines also reserve a sample test check of applications at the Directorate's own level, so a file cleared twice can still be pulled for a third look.

For tracking, e-District's Track Your Application page carries this scheme by name in its service list under the Higher Education department. You choose the department and then the service, pick your district, and enter the application number and the applicant name exactly as they appear on the application form, with the security code. Because disbursement is routed through your university, a status that looks final on the portal still leaves the credit itself with your university's accounts office.

How winners are picked

Selection process

Eligibility gets you considered, not selected. Each state university forwards its list of eligible students to the Directorate in order of merit, and where the number of students exceeds the number of scholarships, the guidelines settle it on the merit of the qualifying aggregate percentage.

The part that decides how hard that ranking is has nothing to do with you. Funds are allotted to universities out of the total earmarked for the scheme each financial year in proportion to the students enrolled with them, so you are ranked against applicants inside your own university rather than against every applicant in Delhi. On top of that, the Trust may restrict the number of beneficiaries depending on availability of funds and priority to lower income groups, and the guidelines state plainly that mere application or recommendation by your university does not entitle you to assistance, and that the decision of the Trust is final and binding.

Fine print

Terms & conditions

The declaration you sign carries the penalty, not the application form. Annexure A has you undertake that if the university comes to know you were availing other assistance, you will refund the entire amount with penal interest calculated at 10% for the period from the credit of the amount till the date of refund, and that the university is free to initiate legal action against you or your parents for wrong or misleading information in the application. The guidelines set out the same recovery on the Directorate's side, and the older document on e-District uses the identical 10% rate, so that clause survived the redesign of the scheme untouched.

Conduct stays a live condition for the whole tenure. Complaints against a student regarding indiscipline or criminal behaviour, including any complaint of having indulged in ragging, lead to forfeiture of the scholarship, so the risk does not close once an amount has been sanctioned.

Get help

Contact

The Directorate of Higher Education publishes the scheme from BTE Complex, Muni Maya Ram Marg, Pitampura, Delhi-110034, with 91-11-27313035 as its listed telephone number and dtehedu@gmail.com as its email.

Grievances have their own ladder, and skipping a rung wastes weeks. The guidelines send you to the nodal officer of your college first, then to the nodal officer of your university, and only if it stays unresolved to the Directorate at studentloan.delhi@gov.in. Trouble with the portal itself is a different route, through the Register Grievances service on e-District.

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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