Indira Gandhi Utkrisht Chattervriti Yojana(IGUCY)

The myScheme record carries an opening date of 3rd October 2005 and no closing date. The ePASS scheme description sets no annual last date either, so nothing here works like an exam form with a published window. The date that binds you is the one the Directorate of Higher Education notifies for the running cycle, which can only come after the HPBOSE and HPU results are declared and the merit lists exist. Your institution's scholarship desk hears it before any aggregator prints it.

Three conditions do the real work here: you must be a bonafide resident of Himachal Pradesh, you must clear the minimum-marks floor the myScheme record sets for the HPBOSE Class 12 examination and for the undergraduate degree, and you must join an academic or professional stream after the result that put your name on a list.

The two official descriptions do not even agree on that middle condition. The ePASS scheme description sets no marks floor at all: it names the topper slots and the requirement to join an academic or professional stream, and stops there. Either way the floor is the smaller hurdle, because selection runs off topper lists, so the bar each year sits wherever the last name on your stream's merit list lands and it moves with every batch.

One wording difference between the two official descriptions is worth knowing. The HP ePASS scheme description describes the Class 12 slot as the ten male toppers of each stream, while the undergraduate slot covers toppers of both sexes from the B.A., B.Sc. and B.Com. lists. The same portal runs a separate award, the Kalpana Chawla Chhatravriti Yojna, for meritorious girl students of Class 12. The myScheme record does not carry the gender wording, so if you are a female Class 12 topper, ask your institution which of the two schemes your name has been routed under rather than assuming.

The scheme record publishes no exclusion list, but the design itself excludes clearly. Students whose Class 12 board is not HPBOSE cannot enter the school-level slot, because the merit lists come from the H.P. Board of School Education, Dharamshala, and the undergraduate slot draws only on the B.A., B.Sc. and B.Com. lists supplied by HPU, Shimla. Residents of other states are outside the scheme entirely. A topper who does not continue into a further academic or professional course drops out of consideration, since the award is conditional on joining one.

Renewal is where this scheme is generous. Once selected, the same student keeps receiving the scholarship every year until the degree or course is complete, on one condition: the ePASS description requires at least 55% marks in each subsequent class. Note the asymmetry, you needed topper-level marks to get in, but only 55% to stay in, so a dip in performance after Class 12 does not automatically cost you the award.

The award is a flat cash scholarship per selected student per year, paid as a direct benefit transfer. Who gets picked is fixed by slot, and the slot structure is the same in every official description; only the gender wording, covered under Eligibility, moves between them.

The ePASS wording stops there. It does not say whether the degree-level ten means ten per merit list or ten across the three, which is the one count worth putting to the Directorate desk before you assume you are inside it.

The amount has a paper trail worth following, because the state revised it and one of its own portals did not follow. Under the head Medha Promotion, Himachal's Budget Speech 2022-23 announced that the rates of five named state scholarships, the Indira Gandhi Utkrisht Chhaatervriti Yojana among them, were being raised from monthly rates that had stood unchanged for years, to Rs 18,000 per annum. That is the figure the myScheme listing now carries. The ePASS scheme description was written before the revision and still prints Rs 10,000 per annum, which is also why college pages that copied it still say so.

The total pool is described as 150 meritorious students, a figure GDC Dehra's notice and the myScheme benefits text both carry, while the topper slots above add up to far fewer fresh awards in any one year. No official description reconciles the two counts. Since the award renews annually, 150 reads as a standing count rather than a year's intake, but no portal says that outright.

The paperwork proves the three things eligibility turns on: that you are a Himachali (domicile certificate), that the marks are yours (marksheets and certificates), and that you have actually joined a course (admission letter). Bank account details matter more here than in most schemes, because the money moves by direct benefit transfer and a wrong account number is the most self-inflicted way to lose a year's payment. Keep originals and photocopies together, the printed application travels physically to your institution's head, and produce the caste or disability certificate only if it applies to you.

The two official lists are not the same list. What ePASS asks for under this scheme specifically is a passport size photo, the Aadhaar UID or EID number, the Himachali bonafide certificate, the result cards from Matric onwards and the latest statement of the student's own bank account, so the result cards reach back further than the single exam that put you on the merit list, and the bank proof is a statement rather than a written-down account number.

The form for this scheme lives on Himachal's own scholarship portal, HP ePASS at hpepass.cgg.gov.in, where it sits under State Sponsored Schemes beside the Kalpana Chawla and Swami Vivekanand awards; the same portal's registration note points students to scholarships.gov.in for the centrally sponsored schemes instead. The flow, as the ePASS description lays it out, has an online half and a physical half. Register as a student, fill the online form, then print the submitted form and hand it with your documents to the head of your institution, who retains it. The institution does the online verification and forwards the verified candidate list to the Directorate of Higher Education; government colleges within the state forward only the list, while universities and private or professional institutes send the attested form too.

That physical half matters: your application is not complete when you press submit, it is complete when your college has verified and forwarded it. Follow up with the scholarship clerk, not just the portal.

To track what happened afterwards, ePASS gives you two routes: log in with your student credentials, or use the portal's check-status option, which works without logging in. Since payment comes as DBT, the final confirmation is the credit in the bank account you named in the form, so watch the account, not only the portal status.

The selecting is done at Dharamshala and at Shimla, not at the Directorate. HPBOSE hands over its 10+2 stream merit lists and HPU its B.A., B.Sc. and B.Com. lists, and the Directorate pays the names at the top of them; what its own process adds is verification, your institution certifying that the topper on the list is the student enrolled in its classroom. GDC Dehra's notice states the corollary that surprises most applicants, the award is made purely on merit without any income ceiling, so family income neither qualifies nor disqualifies anyone here.

The scheme's standing conditions are scattered across its official descriptions rather than gathered in one notified list. The ones that bind: the scholarship continues to the same student until the degree or course is complete, and the ePASS description makes each renewal subject to achieving at least 55% marks in the subsequent classes. The myScheme record words the enrolment condition as admission at a recognized university or institution within or outside Himachal Pradesh, so studying outside the state does not cost you the award as long as your residency is Himachali. The printed application stays with the head of the institution for the record. The notified guidelines document for the scheme is hosted on scholarships.gov.in as a scanned file, so for any condition not answered on the portals, that PDF and your college office are the binding references.

The scheme has its own desk at the Directorate. The ePASS contact page lists the Indira Gandhi Utkrisht Chhatervritti Yojna desk at 0177-2653120, Extn. 226, with scheme and portal queries preferably by email to hpepass2013@gmail.com. The postal address is Director, Directorate of Higher Education, Himachal Pradesh, Shimla-171001, and the Director's office is reachable at dhe-sml-hp@gov.in. Quote your ePASS application number when you write; it is the number the portal's own status lookup runs on, and the fastest way for the desk to pull your file.