Financial Assistance To Visually Challenged Teachers(FAVCT)

Overview

About FAVCT

This is a reimbursement for a serving college teacher who is fully blind or has low vision, so a student who arrived from a scholarship listing has nothing to file here. Financial Assistance to Visually Challenged Teachers pays a permanent college teacher back for what a Reader costs, and for Braille books, recorded material and similar teaching aids, up to Rs 36,000 in a year, per the UGC guidelines for the Persons with Disabilities Scheme in Colleges. Nor is it a monthly allowance paid into a teacher's account by Delhi: the Commission releases the grant to the college against original bills, and the college is the body that pays the teacher.

The operative text is not a standalone circular. It is section B of the UGC booklet titled Guidelines for Persons with Disabilities Scheme in Colleges, written for the XII Plan and covering 2012-2017, whose section A is the institution-facing HEPSN scheme. Section B is one page of scheme text followed by the format a college fills in and the utilization certificate that closes the year, and that single page settles the eligible teacher, the ceiling, the hourly limit on what a Reader may be paid, the route a proposal takes and how each instalment is released, per the scheme guidelines.

Searching for the scheme is harder than it should be because the Commission has published it under three different titles. The Xth Plan version came out as Financial Assistance to Visually Handicapped Teachers, per the UGC Xth Plan guidelines. The booklet now in force says Visually Challenged Teachers on its scheme page while its own prescribed format, printed two pages later, still carries the older word in the heading. Current UGC correspondence uses a third title again, Financial Assistance to Visually-Disabled Teachers. What the teacher is entitled to has not moved with any of it.

Status is the part worth checking before anything else, because the guidelines say in terms that the scheme will end with the Plan period, and that plan period ran out. What has kept it alive is a run of extension letters. The most recent one traced, file number 5-7/2023(SCT) of January 2026, tells registrars and principals that UGC has extended the scheme up to 2025-26 and asks them to send applications with the documents named in the 12th Plan guidelines, per that UGC advisory on Financial Assistance to Visually-Disabled Teachers. That year is now behind us, and no later extension letter has appeared on the Commission's own site or on the NIC-hosted pages that carry this one, so a teacher planning to engage a Reader in the current year is really asking whether the next extension has issued, and the college office is where that is known first.

Who runs it

Provider

At a glance

Key details

Calendar

Important dates

Neither an application window nor a last date is published for this scheme, and the silence is consistent rather than an oversight: the Commission's most recent advisory sets no deadline either and only asks that applications be sent, per the UGC advisory.

The deadline that actually governs a teacher is therefore the college's internal one. Because the proposal travels with the Twelfth Plan General Development Grant proposal, the college's own submission cycle for that proposal is what a teacher has to be inside, and it is set by the college and its affiliating university rather than announced nationally.

The only firm dates in the current correspondence are the extension horizon and the letter behind it. The January 2026 letter records the scheme as extended up to 2025-26 and refers back to an earlier letter of the same file number dated 20.08.2025, per the UGC advisory. Both of those are now in the past, which is why the live question is not when to apply but whether the scheme has been extended again.

Who can apply

Eligibility criteria

The scheme is written for permanent teachers, and the college employing them has to be recognised under sections 2(f) and 12(B) of the UGC Act. A temporary, contractual or ad hoc appointment does not qualify however long it has run, and the recognition test attaches to the institution rather than to how it is financed. The copy of the booklet UGC hosts on its own site makes that explicit in a clause the circulated copy leaves out, stating that self financing colleges covered under 12(B) of the UGC Act, 1956 are eligible to receive the grant, per the UGC-hosted Persons with Disabilities Scheme guidelines.

The medical test is stated in words rather than in a percentage. The prescribed format asks the college to record the nature of blindness as fully blind or low vision and to attach a certificate from a government hospital to that effect, and no disability percentage appears anywhere in the scheme text. The two categories do carry statutory meanings: under the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, blindness covers total absence of sight, or visual acuity less than 3/60 in the better eye with best possible correction, or a field of vision subtending an angle of less than 10 degree, while low-vision covers acuity not exceeding 6/18 down to 3/60, or a field of less than 40 degree down to 10 degree, per the Act as published on India Code.

The condition most likely to defeat a qualified teacher is not about the teacher at all. The proposal that reaches UGC carries a consolidated list of all the visually challenged teachers in the institute, compiled by the college, so someone who satisfies every stated test but whose college never draws up that list is outside the scheme in practice.

Who cannot apply

Exclusions

Writing to the Commission yourself is the most reliable way to lose time. The January 2026 advisory records that separate representations were being submitted by individual teachers from the same college, that this was causing avoidable delays and administrative inefficiencies, and directs that all applications from a college be consolidated and forwarded through the respective university or college authorities on a reimbursement basis, per the UGC advisory. An individual letter to Delhi creates no claim, and on the Commission's own account it holds up the claim that would have counted.

Everything else that excludes is financial, and all of it bites after the money has been spent. Anything paid to a Reader above the hourly cap is not reimbursable, so a rate agreed above it leaves the teacher carrying the difference. Anything above the annual ceiling falls outside the scheme however genuine the expense, because the ceiling is a maximum and not a target. An expense with no original bill behind it fails for a different reason again, since the college is instructed to reimburse actual amounts rather than an account of what was spent.

Continuation

Renewal conditions

Nothing renews on the teacher's side the way a scholarship renews. The ceiling is expressed per annum, so a fresh year opens a fresh entitlement against fresh bills, and what the teacher owes each year is paperwork rather than a new application.

Whether the next year's money arrives is decided in the college's file. The first instalment travels with the letter of approval; later instalments are paid only on receipt of the Utilization Certificate of the previous grant together with the Statement of Expenditure incurred in the previous year, with the details pertaining to visually challenged teachers appended to it, per the scheme guidelines. That is the annual re-verification, and it is collective: a college that has not closed last year's certificate holds up this year's release for everyone on its list, which is worth establishing before a teacher concludes the Commission has turned them down.

The scheme's own renewal is the extension letter, and nothing published makes it automatic. It has simply been issued again and again.

What you get

Award & benefits

The allowance is Rs 36,000 per annum for a visually challenged permanent teacher, and the college reimburses on receipt of the actual amount received by the Reader and the actual expenditure incurred by the teacher, subject to that maximum, per the scheme guidelines. The ceiling is not reserved for the Reader alone. Braille books and material, recorded materials, and any other material or equipment required for research, teaching and learning are all admissible against the same annual figure, which matters to a teacher whose real bottleneck is a scanner rather than a person.

Inside that ceiling sits a rate limit that has never moved. The amount payable to a Reader shall not exceed Rs 50 per hour under the booklet in force, and the identical figure was already in the Xth Plan text and carried forward unchanged into the XI Plan guidelines for colleges. The hourly rate has held across three plan periods while the annual ceiling tripled, so a teacher negotiating with a Reader today is negotiating against a number fixed a very long time ago.

The annual ceiling itself has moved twice, and no single UGC document carries the whole record of it.

• The scheme provides the following benefits to visually challenged permanent teachers: 1. Financial Support
• An allowance of Rs. 36,000/- per annum is provided to meet expenses related to teaching, learning and research.
• Provision of funds for payment to a Reader, enabling the teacher to carry out academic duties effectively.
• 3. Access to Learning Materials Funds can be used for purchase of: Braille Books/Material
• Any other related/required material or equipment for research, teaching and learning
• The scheme enables visually challenged teachers to achieve self-dependence in their teaching and research activities.

What to prepare

Documents required

What the teacher personally hands over is short. Original bills for the expenditure incurred go to the college. So does a receipt from the Reader, and that receipt has to carry a revenue stamp, which is the detail that most often sends a file back for a second trip. A certificate from a government hospital establishing fully blind or low vision status completes the teacher's half.

Where those bills go is worth stating because it saves a wasted journey. The guidelines say bills in original are required to be submitted by the teacher to the college, and that they are not required to be submitted to the UGC. The Commission never sees them; the college holds them against its own Utilization Certificate.

The college's half of the file asks about more than the teacher might expect. The prescribed format records the teacher's department and date of appointment in it, the Reader's name and educational qualification, the honorarium paid to the Reader per month and the total amount to be paid. Around that it wants the college's own credentials: its standing under sections 2(f) and 12(B), the SC, ST or minority concentrated classification of the district it stands in, whether a plan or non-plan grant already reaches it from UGC or the state government, and bank details down to the IFSC and MICR codes, per the prescribed format in the guidelines.

Step by step

How to apply

One route exists and it is offline. The proposal goes from the college to the respective UGC Regional Office or NRCB, travelling with the college's Twelfth Plan General Development Grant proposal and showing the consolidated list of all the visually challenged teachers in the institute, per the scheme guidelines. There is no portal, no login, and no individual application form for a teacher to fill in.

The January 2026 advisory tightens that route rather than replacing it. Applications from a college are to be consolidated and forwarded through the university or college authorities on a reimbursement basis, and universities are asked to circulate the advisory to their constituent and affiliated colleges falling under 2(f) and 12(B). For a teacher the practical instruction is to get onto the college's list, not to write to Delhi.

Tracking follows from who the applicant is. Because the proposal belongs to the college, no personal application number exists to check anywhere, and the useful questions are all addressed to the college. Ask the office that forwarded the consolidated list whether the letter of approval and the first instalment have come in, since the guidelines release those together. Ask the same office whether last year's Utilization Certificate and Statement of Expenditure have gone back, because that is what unlocks the next instalment. Where the college's answers run out, the Regional Office holding the file is the next door, and a file that has stopped moving altogether can be raised on the central public grievance portal, which the UGC website links from its own pages.

How winners are picked

Selection process

Nothing about this scheme is competitive. UGC analyses and approves the proposal at its own level, and the first instalment of the admissible grant follows approval, per the scheme guidelines. Nobody is marked, nobody is ranked against another applicant, and no fixed quantity of awards is shared out; a file either clears the recognition and documentation tests or it does not.

Monitoring is the part that quietly changed between plan periods. The Xth Plan text provided for UGC to send a mid-term review committee to evaluate performance, per those older guidelines. Neither the XI Plan version nor the booklet in force repeats it, and both rest instead on the Utilization Certificate and the Statement of Expenditure, which is a paper check rather than a visit.

Fine print

Terms & conditions

Reimbursement discipline is the whole of the financial condition. The college reimburses the teacher on receipt of the actual amount received by the Reader and the actual expenditure incurred, subject to the annual maximum, which means the teacher funds the expense first and recovers it afterwards.

What a college signs at the end of the year is closer to an open liability than a receipt. The utilization certificate states that the grant was used for the purpose it was sanctioned for and on the Commission's terms, and undertakes that if a check or audit objection notices an irregularity at a later stage, action will be taken to refund or regularize the objected amount. It goes out over the signatures of the Registrar or Principal, the Finance Officer and a chartered accountant or government auditor, per the scheme guidelines. That exposure is why a college asks for the Reader's revenue-stamped receipt before it asks for anything else.

One standing condition is easy to read past. The guidelines state that the scheme will end with the Plan period, so the entitlement was never open-ended by design, and every year it has run since that Plan closed has rested on the Commission extending it.

Get help

Contact

Start inside the college rather than with UGC. Whoever compiles the consolidated list of visually challenged teachers, usually the principal's office or the section that handles UGC grant proposals, is the only person who can put a name on that list and later say whether the sanction has arrived.

Once the file leaves the college it sits with the UGC Regional Office or NRCB that the guidelines route college proposals to, and that is the office to ask about a proposal already forwarded.

Head office is the last stop rather than the first, and what it publishes is general contact rather than a scheme desk: contact.ugc@nic.in, the lines 011-23604446 and 011-23604200, and a postal address on Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi 110002 (UGC website). Correspondence on this scheme carries the file number 5-7/2023(SCT), used by the Commission itself in its January 2026 advisory, and quoting it saves a round of routing.

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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