ICAR - Post Matric Scholarship for Scheduled Caste / Scheduled Tribes Candidates(ICARPMSSCSTC)

Overview

About ICARPMSSCSTC

The Indian Council of Agricultural Research had already reserved 22.5% of its Junior and Senior Fellowships for Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe candidates when it noticed that not enough of them were coming forward to take those fellowships up. Its own written diagnosis was that undergraduate agriculture had become costly enough that students from the weaker sections could not finish the degree that leads to a fellowship in the first place (ICAR rules governing the scheme). The Post Matric Scholarship for SC/ST candidates is what the Council wrote to close that gap, and it pays at the bachelor's stage, years before any fellowship is in reach.

This is a bachelor's degree award inside the agricultural university system, and it is small, fixed and quota-based rather than competitive. The Council provides for 240 of them a year and parcels them out to universities against how many SC and ST students each one actually enrolled, so the award follows the seat rather than a rank (ICAR rules governing the scheme).

Its subject boundary is agriculture and allied sciences, and its level boundary is the bachelor's degree. Nothing above that line is covered here, which is a live source of confusion because most of ICAR's better-known money sits at the postgraduate and doctoral stages instead.

ICAR still lists Post Matric Scholarship among the human resource development programmes it runs, describing it as support provided to Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe students for the Bachelor degree programme in various branches of agriculture (ICAR Human Resources Development). The scheme is old: the DARE and ICAR annual report for 2010-11 already carried it in the fellowships table at 240 awards and Rs 300 a month, which was the rate before the revision described further down (DARE and ICAR annual report 2010-11).

Who runs it

Provider

At a glance

Key details

Calendar

Important dates

There is no national last date to miss. The scheme record shows an opening date with the closing date left empty (myScheme record), and the rulebook fixes no annual calendar of its own. An October cutoff attached to this scheme in a deadline listing has almost certainly been borrowed from the National Scholarship Portal, whose ICAR schemes do run an application window that closes in October (National Scholarship Portal scheme list) and which does not carry this one.

The date that actually binds is the academic one. Entitlement runs from the day the student joins the course, and the yearly rhythm is set by when the university compiles its demand and sends it in. Treat admission week as the deadline: ask the scholarship section for the ICAR post matric proforma while you are still doing joining formalities, rather than waiting for an announcement the Council does not make to students.

Who can apply

Eligibility criteria

There is no marks bar here and no entrance rank, and the rulebook nowhere puts a ceiling on what the family earns. Eligibility turns entirely on three settled facts about the applicant: Indian citizenship, membership of the Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes as defined by the Government of India, and a place already held at an Agricultural University in an undergraduate programme of agriculture and allied sciences (ICAR rules governing the scheme). A candidate who reached the university on a state quota with an ordinary aggregate stands in the same pool as one who topped the entrance.

What "Agricultural University" covers is the one phrase in that clause with teeth, and the Council reads it institutionally. When ICAR circulated the revised rate for this scholarship, it addressed the order to the Vice Chancellors of the Central Agricultural Universities, the Deemed Universities of ICAR, the State Agricultural Universities and the Central Universities with an agriculture faculty (ICAR rules governing the scheme). An agriculture degree taken at a general private university outside that circle is not what the scheme was written around.

Who cannot apply

Exclusions

Nowhere in the rulebook is there a list of people barred from applying. What shuts a student out sits instead in the general conditions, and it operates on holding the award rather than on seeking it.

The hard one is exclusivity. A student who accepts this scholarship is not permitted to avail any other scholarship or concession provided by any other agency, and is not permitted to accept part-time employment either (ICAR rules governing the scheme). That clause is drawn broadly, and it is why accepting this award is a decision rather than a formality for anyone who also qualifies for a state post-matric scholarship.

Termination is written to need no notice at all. It bites from whichever comes sooner, the day the scholar drops off the institution's roll or the day the sanction runs out. Beyond those two dates, the award can be stopped at any moment if the institution and the Council between them judge the scholar negligent in studies or guilty of misconduct, and it stops if the institution drops the student for poor performance.

Continuation

Renewal conditions

Continuation is the default, not an annual reapplication. The award runs on year on year so long as the student's progress satisfies what the university prescribes, which leaves the renewal test with the same institution that raised the demand for the money (ICAR rules governing the scheme).

Academic probation is where it bites. A student placed on academic probation draws only half the rate for the probation period, and that half-rate concession is available exactly once in the whole course. A second spell of academic probation carries no scholarship at all for its duration.

Illness and maternity are handled on their own slabs, and those concessions are also a once-per-course allowance rather than a standing right. None of the money is paid unless the institution's head both recommends the application and certifies that the scholar is likely to make up the deficiency in studies later.

What you get

Award & benefits

The current cash rate is Rs 1,000 a month. Read only the numbered clauses and you will come away with Rs 300, because the clause fixing the value was drafted at that figure and never edited; the correction is an ICAR office order appended to the last sheet of the same PDF, which sets the post matric scholarship for SC/ST against an existing rate of Rs 300 and a revised rate of Rs 1,000, effective from academic session 2018-19 (ICAR rules governing the scheme). The Government of India scheme record carries the revised figure (myScheme record), which is why the older rate survives only on pages that quote the clauses and stop before the order.

Alongside it sits a contingent grant of Rs 750 a year, earmarked in the rules for tuition fee, books and the cost of uniforms. The same office order states that the contingency grant payable remains unchanged, so that figure has stood still while the monthly rate tripled.

Tenure is generous where the amount is not. The award covers the whole of the normal period of the particular degree programme the candidate was admitted to, and entitlement starts from the date of joining the course rather than from the date some office processed the paperwork (ICAR rules governing the scheme). For a four-year B.Sc. (Agri.) that is the full four years, subject to the probation and absence rules above.

Rs 1,000 a month does not settle a fee bill and the rules never claim it will; the only fee-facing money here is the Rs 750 a year, which the clause splits three ways between tuition, books and uniforms. What the Council said in writing it was buying was the ability to reach the end of the degree at all, and the amount is sized to that sentence rather than to a cost of study.

• Value Of Scholarship
• The value of the scholarship will be ₹ 1,000/- per month along with a contingent grant of ₹ 750/- per annum for the payment of tuition fees, purchase of books, cost of uniforms, etc.
• Duration Of Scholarship
• The duration of the scholarship will cover the whole of the normal period of the particular degree programme to which the candidate is admitted.

What to prepare

Documents required

Nothing on the checklist is unusual, and the scheme record sets it out in full below. What repays attention is that two of the items decide something the others do not, and both are settled long before you hand the file across a counter.

The first is the caste certificate. The eligibility clause is written against the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes as defined by the Government of India, so what the certificate has to establish is that status from a competent authority, not a classification that holds only inside one state's own arrangements.

The second is the proof of admission, which does more work here than in a scheme with an open application. It is what places you inside the university's count of admitted SC and ST candidates, and that count is what decides how many of the 240 scholarships your university is allotted in the first place.

The Aadhaar-linked bank account is worth a second look for a reason peculiar to this scheme. Because the money is routed through the institution rather than paid out centrally, the account details are used at the university's disbursal desk, so an account that is dormant, unseeded or in a mismatched name stalls the payment locally instead of failing loudly at a central portal.

Step by step

How to apply

You do not apply to ICAR, and you do not apply on the National Scholarship Portal. The Government of India record puts the application mode at offline and publishes a printable PDF form in place of a portal link (myScheme record).

The money moves institution-first. Both the scholarship and the contingent grant are remitted to the institutions by the Council on the basis of a demand received from each institution, raised through the Registrar or the Comptroller of the university in the prescribed proforma (ICAR rules governing the scheme). The student's part is to get onto the list the Registrar's office compiles, which means taking the completed proforma, the caste certificate, the admission proof and the bank details to whichever office at the university handles scholarships, in the weeks after admission.

That routing is easy to verify and easy to get wrong, because the portal answer is the one most search results give. The National Scholarship Portal does carry ICAR schemes under the Department of Agriculture Research and Education, and its central sector list shows four: the ICAR Junior and Senior Research Fellowships, National Talent Scholarship (PG), National Talent Scholarship (UG) and the ICAR Post Graduate Scholarship (National Scholarship Portal scheme list). The Post Matric Scholarship for SC and ST candidates is not one of them. A student hunting for it in the portal's scheme dropdown is looking in the wrong building.

Where to Chase It If the Money Does Not Arrive

Nothing about this scheme produces a reference number a student can key into a status screen, because the claim that reached ICAR was the university's and not yours. The trail therefore starts, and usually ends, at the office that raised it.

Work up the chain in order: the scholarship or academic section that collected your proforma, then the Registrar or Comptroller who signed the demand, then the university's nodal officer for ICAR scholarships, since the Council addresses its scholarship orders to nodal officers and comptrollers at the agricultural universities directly (ICAR rules governing the scheme). Two questions settle almost every delay: whether your name was on the demand the university sent, and whether the Council has released against that demand yet. The second is not something the university can fix for you, but it is something it can tell you.

How winners are picked

Selection process

Selection is arithmetic at the Council followed by a list at the university. The rulebook sets the annual count at 240 and earmarks them university by university, in proportion to the actual number of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe candidates admitted (ICAR rules governing the scheme).

The Council makes a tentative distribution first, on the basis of the seats each university has reserved for SC and ST candidates. It then fixes the year's actual number against the SC and ST students who really were admitted, so that the ratio of admitted students to available scholarships stays roughly equal across universities. A university that under-fills its reserved seats loses share; one that fills them gains it.

For an individual student the practical consequence is that the competition is local rather than national. Your odds turn on how many SC and ST students your own university admitted that year set against how many scholarships it drew, and the rulebook prescribes no marks-based ranking to break ties inside that pool.

Fine print

Terms & conditions

The two conditions that carry real weight, exclusivity and termination without notice, are set out under Exclusions above. What is worth adding is how they sit against the payment route.

The Council releases against a university's demand, and the award ends from the date a scholar leaves the rolls, so the two clauses meet inside the university's accounts rather than in yours. If a transfer, a year drop or a course change is on the table, raise it with the scholarship section before the change is recorded and ask what happens to the instalments already claimed for you, because that office holds both halves of the answer.

Get help

Contact

Start at your own university, because the demand and the disbursal both sit there. Between them, the scholarship section, the Registrar's office and the Comptroller hold every record of your claim.

Rules and allocation belong somewhere else entirely, to ICAR's Division of Education. The post that owns it, Deputy Director General (Agricultural Education), keeps a desk at Krishi Anusandhan Bhawan - II, New Delhi - 110 012, answering on 91-11-25841760 and at ddgedu[dot]icar[at]gov[dot]in (ICAR contact directory). Write there about how the scheme works or how many awards your university drew this year. Do not write there about one unpaid instalment, which the Council settles with universities rather than with individuals.

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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