Pradhan Mantri Virasat ka Samvardhan(PM VIKAS)

Overview

About PM VIKAS

The Ministry of Minority Affairs approved the PM VIKAS guidelines in January 2025 and told the Rajya Sabha a year later that a target to train about 1.51 lakh beneficiaries had been allocated to Project Implementing Agencies across states and union territories (Ministry of Minority Affairs reply, 3 February 2026). Two things follow from that sentence, and both cut against how the scheme is usually described online. PM VIKAS is not a scholarship. And the place a candidate signs up is not the scheme's own portal, which is why so many people conclude, wrongly, that there is no way in at all.

PM VIKAS is a Central Sector Scheme of the Ministry of Minority Affairs built by merging five older livelihood and education schemes into one structure. The name arrived first: the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Ko Kaam Karyakram was renamed Pradhan Mantri Virasat Ka Samvardhan in December 2022, after Cabinet approval for the 15th Finance Commission period (Ministry of Minority Affairs, 15 December 2022). The operating guidelines took another two years to be signed off, which is why an official reply as late as February 2025 recorded that the scheme was yet to be implemented (Ministry of Minority Affairs, 10 February 2025).

Reading the components as separate schemes wearing one name is the accurate way to approach it. Each one absorbed a predecessor, and each kept that predecessor's logic. There are four components, and the first of them splits into two sub-components that pay at different rates.

The fourth component is the one most likely to waste a reader's time. Infrastructure development under PM VIKAS is not a benefit a person receives; it is a route by which a state government submits a proposal under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Vikas Karyakram to build or augment training and community infrastructure, and its cost is shared between the Centre and the state rather than borne fully by the Ministry (scheme guidelines). The other three components are funded entirely by the Ministry.

Money is the fairest test of whether any of this is real, and it needs both of the Ministry's own records to read correctly. Asked in the Rajya Sabha, the Ministry gave a budget estimate of Rs 255.43 crore for 2024-25, a revised estimate that fell to Rs 30.00 crore and actual expenditure of nil; for 2025-26 it gave an estimate of Rs 267.29 crore revised to Rs 200.00 crore, with Rs 92.28 crore spent by early February (Ministry of Minority Affairs reply, 3 February 2026). That nil is easy to misread as a dead scheme. The Union Budget shows why it is not: the PM VIKAS head carries two separate lines, and while the scheme's own line spent nothing in 2024-25, the committed-liabilities line beside it spent Rs 203.35 crore that year clearing dues left over from the schemes PM VIKAS replaced (Notes on Demands for Grants 2026-2027, Demand No. 70). The honest summary is that the Ministry spent 2024-25 paying off the old schemes and 2025-26 starting the new one.

The guidelines tie the scheme to the 15th Finance Commission cycle running up to 2025-26, so what the next Budget does with it is the live question. It funds it: PM VIKAS carries Rs 303.27 crore for 2026-2027, this time with no committed-liabilities line beside it at all (Notes on Demands for Grants 2026-2027). The Ministry's own page puts the intended reach of the scheme at roughly 9 lakh candidates over the Finance Commission cycle, with 1 lakh of those in the education component (Ministry of Minority Affairs, PM VIKAS education component).

Who runs it

Provider

At a glance

Key details

Calendar

Important dates

No annual application window is announced to candidates, because candidate enrolment follows a sanctioned batch rather than a calendar. The deadlines the Ministry does publish bind states, union territories and agencies, and they have moved more than once.

For a candidate the timing question is therefore not when a portal opens but whether an agency in that district is currently running a sanctioned batch. The Ministry's notice board is the closest public proxy: the November 2025 reopening is the most recent window it has posted for project proposals, and the notices after it deal with Lok Samvardhan Parv events and with trainer attendance rather than with fresh sanctions (PM VIKAS portal).

Who can apply

Eligibility criteria

Anyone of Indian nationality belonging to the six communities notified under the National Commission for Minorities Act 1992, that is Buddhists, Christians, Muslims, Jains, Parsis and Sikhs, may be enrolled. The age band is the first fork: 14 to 45 years for traditional skilling, modern skilling and the education bridge, and 18 to 45 years for the women's leadership and entrepreneurship component (scheme guidelines, eligibility criteria for beneficiaries).

Two documents function as a hard gate rather than a formality. A candidate must hold an Aadhaar card and an Aadhaar-linked bank account at the time of registration, and where a candidate has neither, the implementing agency is required to arrange both before training begins (eligibility criteria for beneficiaries). Academic eligibility is not set by the scheme at all: for skilling it is whatever the NSQF prescribes for the specific job role, and for the education component it is whatever NIOS prescribes for the class being attempted.

Seat earmarking is where the scheme's priorities are visible. At least 33 percent of the target in both skilling sub-components and at least 50 percent in the education component are reserved for women, the women's leadership component is entirely for women, and 3 percent of seats across all three are reserved for persons with disabilities (eligibility criteria for beneficiaries). Candidates from communities notified as minorities by a state or union territory rather than by the central Act may also be considered, but they may not occupy more than 5 percent of total seats and their state government has to certify the position.

One widely repeated misreading is worth correcting. There is no income ceiling on a candidate from the six notified communities. The guidelines say only that beneficiaries belonging to the Economically Weaker Section are preferably to be targeted, which is a mobilisation preference rather than a test, and the EWS certificate is a requirement for the separate non-minority quota: up to 25 percent of seats in traditional training and up to 15 percent in the other components may go to non-minority EWS candidates to promote inter-community solidarity (scheme guidelines).

Who cannot apply

Exclusions

The Ministry publishes no list of disqualifications for this scheme, so what follows is drawn from the operating rules rather than from an exclusions clause. A candidate outside the applicable age band is out, as is a candidate who cannot meet the NSQF entry qualification for the job role on offer. Residential training is not permitted at all under the women's leadership component or the education component, so anyone counting on boarding support under those two will not find it (scheme guidelines). Non-minority candidates are admissible only inside the 25 percent and 15 percent caps described above, and where reserved seats go unfilled the guidelines allow them to be treated as unreserved rather than left empty.

Continuation

Renewal conditions

There is nothing to renew. PM VIKAS funds a training or bridge-education programme of fixed length, not an annual award, so no renewal application, renewal deadline or continuation certificate exists. What stands in for a tenure limit is the length of the course itself: a skilling programme may not run beyond 12 months, and the education component's stipend is drawn for 6 months (scheme guidelines). A second course would be a fresh enrolment in a fresh batch, not a renewal of the first.

What you get

Award & benefits

The stipend is the part most people are searching for, and it is not one number. It varies by component and by whether the training is residential, because residential trainees also receive boarding and lodging support.

Beyond the stipend, a trainee in the modern skilling sub-component is entitled to post-placement support of Rs 2,000 per candidate for 2 months, on top of training and assessment costs that the Ministry pays to the agency under the Common Cost Norms (scheme guidelines, Annexure V).

The education component is the one where the published figures are most often misread as a payment to the student. Its cost norms are Rs 16,000 per candidate as training cost and Rs 4,000 per candidate for assessment and certification, and both are reimbursements to the implementing agency for running the bridge programme and putting the candidate through the NIOS examination (scheme guidelines, Annexure V). What reaches the candidate's own account from that component is the stipend, plus an NIOS certificate for class 8, 10 or 12 if the examination is cleared.

The non-cash side of the scheme sits mostly with artisans. Financial linkage is facilitated by the implementing agency together with the National Minorities Development and Finance Corporation and other partners including banks, non-banking financial companies and state governments (scheme guidelines), while market linkage runs through the Export Promotion Council for Handicrafts, which works as a knowledge partner on marketing linkages, course content, brand positioning and mobilising artisans into producer groups (Ministry of Minority Affairs, 24 March 2025). The selling platform that used to be called Hunar Haat under USTTAD now runs as Lok Samvardhan Parv under PM VIKAS; by July 2025 the Ministry had held 41 Hunar Haats and 4 Lok Samvardhan Parvs (Ministry of Minority Affairs, 23 July 2025).

• Skill training (both traditional and modern).
• Education support (8th std, 10th std. and 12th std.).
• Leadership and entrepreneurship support for women.
• Stipend support to trainees.

What to prepare

Documents required

The document set is short because most verification happens at the training centre rather than at a scholarship desk. An Aadhaar card and an Aadhaar-linked bank account are needed at registration, since the stipend is disbursed through DBT into that account. An EWS certificate is needed only by a non-minority candidate taking a seat in the inter-community quota. Proof of the educational qualification the job role demands under NSQF norms, or the qualification NIOS requires for the class being attempted, completes the set (scheme guidelines).

Two absences are worth naming. The guidelines prescribe no format for a minority community certificate, and for a candidate from a state-notified minority community the assertion comes from the state government rather than from the candidate. Attendance is captured through an Aadhaar-enabled and geofenced biometric system, so the Aadhaar record has to be usable for biometric authentication, not merely present as a number on a form.

Step by step

How to apply

The single most useful thing to know about applying is that the PM VIKAS portal is not where a candidate does it. Someone who lands on the registration form at pmvikas.minorityaffairs.gov.in meets a declaration that the applicant belongs to a central government institution, a central PSU, a central university or an institution of national importance, and reasonably concludes the scheme is closed to individuals. That form is the training-institution one. The portal's own Register menu carries a separate entry, Candidate: New Applicant Registration, and it leads away from the Ministry's site altogether (PM VIKAS portal).

Where it leads is Skill India Digital Hub, the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship platform at skillindiadigital.gov.in. The guidelines are explicit about this split: registration and enrolment of the candidate are done online, and the entire candidate life cycle is captured on the SIDH portal (scheme guidelines). A candidate makes an account there as a learner, completes the identity check, then filters the catalogue for PM VIKAS job roles and registers interest in a batch, which the training partner running that batch approves or does not. Enrolment is confirmed on the candidate's side by accepting that approval, and the same account is where the application shows its status afterwards.

What has to exist before any of that works is a batch, and batches do not appear on demand. A state or a central ministry forwards an agency's proposal, the Ministry sanctions that agency a target and job roles, the agency creates batches on the scheme portal, and only then is there something near you to join. Batch size is capped at 30 candidates, so availability is genuinely local rather than national. Where the targets have gone so far is on the parliamentary record:

Tracking afterwards runs on three separate rails, and knowing which one answers which question saves a lot of calling. Application, enrolment and training status sit in the candidate's own Skill India Digital Hub account, because that is where the life cycle is recorded. Scheme-level progress is published on the PM VIKAS portal's dashboard. Anything that has gone wrong goes to the portal's grievance module, which also carries the view-status option for a complaint already filed. Payment is the case where the rails matter most: stipend is paid by the implementing agency through DBT into the beneficiary's Aadhaar-linked account, and because that account had to be Aadhaar-linked before training began, a stipend that does not arrive is more often a broken bank linkage at the candidate's end than a sanction that never happened.

How winners are picked

Selection process

Nothing here is decided by a competitive examination or a ranked list. A place in a batch is decided by the implementing agency, which is required to mobilise and counsel candidates and to enrol only those who meet the minimum education and experience qualification laid down for that job role under NSQF norms (scheme guidelines). The women's leadership component is the one place where the guidelines name a selection quality rather than a qualification: candidates showing aptitude and leadership are the ones taken.

That component then runs a narrowing ladder inside itself, which is worth understanding before enrolling in it. Every beneficiary enrolled takes the 60-hour leadership and basic entrepreneurship programme. Half of them, selected on potential and inclination to run an enterprise, go on to a 120-hour entrepreneurship development module. Ten percent of those trained as entrepreneurs are then selected on leadership qualities for a 240-hour course to become Biz Sakhis or Udyami Mitras, business mentors expected to give doorstep support to other women setting up ventures (scheme guidelines).

Selection of the agencies themselves is the older and stricter filter. Proposals come in as a Detailed Project Report, are assessed by the PM VIKAS Screening Committee, and go to an Empowered Committee for a final decision on approval and on the target to be allocated. Minority community institutions and industry bodies cannot approach the Ministry directly; their proposals are sought and recommended by the state government concerned, which then forwards them (scheme guidelines).

Fine print

Terms & conditions

Attendance is the condition that most often costs a trainee the certificate. A candidate must maintain at least 70 percent average attendance over the course to be eligible to sit the assessment, and attendance is captured through an Aadhaar-enabled, geofenced biometric system rather than a register (scheme guidelines). Training may not exceed 8 hours a day, and skilling courses run for at least 3 months and no more than 12 months.

The conditions on the agency shape what a trainee can expect at the end. For modern skilling the Ministry requires the implementing partner to place 75 per cent of the candidates it trains under NSQF aligned programmes (Ministry of Minority Affairs, 24 March 2025), and the guidelines add that at least 50 percent of those placements should be in the organised sector, with post-placement tracking of beneficiaries for at least 3 months after training ends. The education component sets a pass benchmark of 40 percent of the targeted beneficiaries clearing the NIOS examination, and where that is missed the agency is paid on a pro-rata basis for the candidates who did pass (scheme guidelines).

On the money side, project funds reach the agency in three instalments in a 30:40:30 ratio, while stipend is delinked from project cost and released in two instalments in an 80:20 ratio. Agencies must keep project records, beneficiary data and biometric attendance for at least 2 years after a project closes, and disputes fall under the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts in Delhi (scheme guidelines).

Get help

Contact

The scheme is administered from the Ministry of Minority Affairs, 11th Floor, Pt. Deendayal Antyodaya Bhawan, CGO Complex, Lodhi Road, New Delhi 110003. The portal lists the Joint Secretary on 011-24364312 and the Deputy Secretary on 011-24360857, with PMVIKAS-mma[at]gov[dot]in as the email address for both (PM VIKAS contact page). For anything about a specific batch, stipend or certificate, the implementing agency running that batch is the first point of contact and the portal's grievance module is the escalation.

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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References

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