Post-Graduate Scholarships for Professional Courses for SC/ST Candidates(PGSPCSCSTC)

This scheme has no standing calendar. Nothing in the guidelines fixes a date, and the scheme record leaves both date fields blank, because a round begins whenever UGC decides to advertise it.

For the portal side of the calendar, NSP states that it is open for academic year 2026-27 from 1 June 2026 onwards.

The entry bar in the scheme record is a graduate degree in the relevant subject plus an admission already taken at postgraduate level. The rule that eliminates people sits in the guidelines' own FAQ: only students pursuing the first year of a postgraduate course during the current academic year may apply, per the scheme guidelines. Find the scheme in the second year of a two-year M.Tech and you have missed it outright rather than joined it late.

Money at home is not one of the tests here. Search the guidelines for an income limit and there is nothing to find: what UGC prints instead is a list of institutions, a list of regulatory councils and a first-year rule. Chasing an income certificate for this form is wasted effort, because category, course type, institution type and year of study are what decide it.

Distance and correspondence study is out, and so is every applicant outside the two notified categories. Read that alongside the institution clause rather than on its own: a regular, full-time, AICTE-approved M.Tech taught at a private university that holds none of the four recognitions fails on the institution test even though it passes the mode-of-study test.

Renewal is not automatic paperwork here, and one clause makes this scheme stricter than most category awards. Continuation through the first year rests on good conduct and prescribed attendance, and the next year of study is released only when the administrative head of the university, institution or college, for example the Registrar, Director or Principal, sends in an annual progress report, per the guidelines. Failing to be promoted forfeits the award, and failing to pass the first year in first division or the equivalent CGPA is separately listed as a ground for cancelling it. A pass mark alone does not protect the second year.

Changing the course of study is not permitted once you are on the scheme.

The rate depends on which professional course you are in, and the guidelines and UGC's own scheme page state it in two different units.

Those two columns do not multiply into each other. The annual figure equals ten months of the monthly rate, not twelve, so treat the number of payable months in your selection year as something to confirm from the year's advertisement rather than something to budget on.

Nothing else comes with it. No contingency has been payable to students selected under the scheme with effect from the selection year 2017-18, and the tenure runs for two or three years depending on the length of the postgraduate course, with no extension for a stretched course, per the scheme guidelines. UGC lists the tenure as 2 years. Payment starts from the date you join the first year of the postgraduate course in the selection year.

Beyond the standard identity, age, marksheet and certificate set the scheme record lists, two details do more damage than any missing certificate. Aadhaar is used as the identifier for releasing the money, and your Aadhaar details are updated through the host university, institute or college after your consent under the Aadhaar Act, 2016. Bank details are the other one: providing incorrect bank details is listed in the guidelines as a ground for cancelling an award that has already been sanctioned, alongside false information in the online application.

Applications open only after UGC advertises the scheme, which it does once a year through a leading newspaper and Employment News and on the UGC website. You then apply online on the National Scholarship Portal, and your host institution verifies the submitted application, per the guidelines. The portal's student menu also carries One Time Registration, which is where an application now starts on NSP.

The form and the payment are tracked separately on NSP, and knowing which of the two you are chasing saves a wasted trip to the college office. Application Status and Check Aadhaar Seeding Status on the NSP student menu answer where your form stands and whether your bank account can receive a transfer at all. The payment side is a different trail: awardees are paid on DBT mode, NIC pushes the list of awardees to the Public Financial Management System, and PFMS generates the payment files for the full duration of the course, which is why a verified application with no credit against it is a payment-chain question rather than a verification one. NSP's Track Your Payment link is the student-facing entry to it. Awardees of previous years continue on the older UGC pattern of assistance through designated branches of Canara Bank.

Selection here is a verification exercise rather than a contest, and the guidelines stop at the eligibility tests and the 1000-candidate objective without publishing a merit list, a cut-off or a category split. What they do state is who checks what: the university, institute or college verifies that the applicant's course really is one of the professional courses defined in the guidelines, and UGC implements and monitors the scheme.

Three lines in the guidelines end an award that has already started. Cancellation follows from failing the first year in first division or equivalent CGPA, from discontinuing studies for personal reasons, and from being found ineligible later on account of false information in the online application or incorrect bank details. Awardees draw the scholarship amount and nothing besides it, and the course cannot be changed mid-tenure.

The guidelines name no scheme-specific helpline. UGC is the implementing and monitoring body, and its published contact details are University Grants Commission, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi 110002, phone 011-23604446, email contact.ugc@nic.in, per UGC. Since your institution verifies the application and sends the annual progress report, its scholarship or SC/ST cell is usually the faster first stop for anything about your own file.