Pragati Scholarship Scheme For Girl Students (Technical Degree)(PSGS-DEG)

Applications are invited once a year, through the National Scholarship Portal, after a notification on the AICTE website. For the 2026-27 batch that notification, dated June 2026, opened the portal for fresh and renewal cases together and fixed the last date for submission at 31 October 2026, with institute-level and then state-level verification to follow in November, per the AICTE notification.

Neither the guidelines nor the notification publishes a date for the merit list or for the DBT credit. What AICTE's Pragati page does show is the pattern: a merit list for the degree scheme has been posted there every year from 2020-21 onwards, the latest for 2025-2026, and month-wise lists of the beneficiaries to whom the scholarship was released were posted through 2021, 2022 and 2023, so expect the list some months after the November verification closes and the credits to go out in batches over the months after that.

Three tests decide it in practice: the year you are in, the family income, and the number of daughters in the family, and each one has a paper form behind it: the bonafide certificate, the income certificate and the parent's declaration, in the formats AICTE publishes with its FAQ.

The year test is narrower than it reads. You must be in the first year of the degree course, or in the second year through lateral entry, in the academic year you apply for. AICTE's Pragati FAQ is blunt that a third-year student is not eligible, and its list of direct rejections adds anyone admitted to a postgraduate course, a dual-degree course, a course AICTE has not approved for the current year, or an institution AICTE has not approved for the current year. The guidelines add a gap rule: the gap between passing the qualifying examination and the session in which you take admission cannot be more than two years.

The income test is Rs 8 lakh a year from all sources in the current financial year, proved by an income certificate issued by a State or UT authority, per the guidelines. The AICTE FAQ lists exactly why income certificates fail: the certificate is not for the current year, it is not in the name of the applicant or a family member, it was issued by someone other than a Tehsildar, Magistrate, Revenue Officer or Block Development Officer, or it carries no signature and stamp. The scheme's own income format is signed by a Tehsildar, District Magistrate or Deputy Commissioner.

The daughters test runs through a parent's declaration that states the total number of daughters and whether the applicant is the first or the second. Reservation applies as per Government of India norms, with one twist worth knowing: a reserved-category candidate who also makes the general merit list is counted against the general list, not her category.

The rejections AICTE describes are rarely about marks. They are about the course, the institution and a second source of money.

The Pragati FAQ names the reasons an application is rejected outright: admission to a non-technical course or to a course AICTE has not approved for the year, an institution AICTE has not approved for the year, incomplete or wrong information in the form, admission to a dual-degree course, admission to a postgraduate course, and receipt of a scholarship from any other source. That last one is wider than students expect. The FAQ's own example is a first-year B.E. student who already holds a Prime Minister's Special Scholarship Scheme award: she is not eligible, because she is already in receipt of a Government of India scholarship.

The guidelines go further than a bar on other scholarships. The grant is conditional on the student receiving no financial assistance "in shape of scholarship/any emoluments, salary, stipend etc." from any other source during the course, and if such assistance turns up, the scholarship is discontinued and the entire amount already paid has to be refunded to AICTE by demand draft in favour of the Member Secretary, AICTE, payable at New Delhi. A stipend from a paid internship in a later year is the case to think about before you accept it.

A girl whose two sisters have already drawn Pragati is out, since the ceiling is two girls per family. And once the award starts, failing a year or dropping out ends it: there is no reinstatement route in the guidelines.

Renewal is not automatic. Each year you file a renewal application on the National Scholarship Portal, and the Pragati FAQ says the document that carries it is a promotion certificate certified by the head of the institution, uploaded on the portal. The FAQ also gives the two reasons a promotion certificate is rejected: it is blank or incomplete, or it lacks the college stamp and the signature of the Principal or Director. The guidelines frame the same step as the passing certificate or marksheet plus a letter from the head of the institution, and they state the consequence plainly: a student who is not promoted to the next class forfeits the scholarship.

A first-year entrant is paid for four years at most, so she renews three times; a lateral-entry entrant is paid for three years and renews twice. For the 2026-27 cycle AICTE's notification opened renewal for the 2023-2024 batch (degree only) and the 2024-2025 and 2025-2026 degree and diploma batches, on the same portal and with the same last date as fresh applications, 31 October 2026. AICTE keeps a separate operating manual for renewal cases on its Pragati page, so read that rather than the fresh-application manual when your turn comes.

The award is Rs 50,000 for every year of study, paid as one lump sum by direct benefit transfer on an annual basis after selection, according to the guidelines. It is meant for college fee, a computer, stationery, books, equipment and software, no additional grant is payable in lieu of hostel or medical charges, and AICTE does not ask for receipts. A girl who enters in the first year and is promoted every year therefore collects Rs 2 lakh over the course.

The bank account matters as much as the marks. The Pragati FAQ says the money goes only to a general savings account in the student's own name, seeded with her Aadhaar; a frill account, a minor account or a joint account is not accepted, and an Aadhaar card plus an Aadhaar-seeded account are mandatory to submit the form at all. The guidelines add a deadline most families miss: a query about non-payment caused by an invalid or wrong account number is entertained only up to six months from the date the merit list is published on the AICTE website.

The scheme's document list tells you what to upload; AICTE's FAQ tells you why uploads get thrown out, which is the more useful half. Each certificate goes up with its mark sheet, the Pragati FAQ says, so scan the Class 10 and Class 12 mark sheets, not just the certificates, and for lateral entry the diploma certificate and its mark sheet as well.

The bonafide certificate is the one to plan for. AICTE's format asks the institution to record your NSP application ID, your roll number, your branch, your domicile state and the institution's AICTE permanent ID, under the signature and seal of the head of the institution, and it warns that a certificate with incomplete information, or with the inapplicable words left unstruck, leads to rejection. The scheme's myScheme record narrows the requirement to a girl whose institute sits in a State or UT other than her domicile State, while AICTE's own upload list carries the certificate for every applicant, so treat it as required. Register on the portal first, get the application ID, and only then ask the college office for the certificate.

There is no offline route and no application fee, per the scheme's myScheme record. The guidelines set a three-tier process: you apply online on the National Scholarship Portal once AICTE publishes its notice, the institution you study in verifies your application, and the Directorate of Technical Education of your state or UT verifies it a second time. Only an application that has cleared both verifications reaches the merit list.

For 2026-27 the National Scholarship Portal lists the degree scheme under its exact name, "AICTE - Pragati Scholarship Scheme For Girl Students (Technical Degree)", as a merit-based scheme open from 1 June 2026, with student applications accepted until 31 October 2026, institute verification and the re-verification of defective applications until 15 November 2026, and the district, state or ministry nodal officer's verification until 30 November 2026, per the portal's scheme list. A defective application is one marked defective at verification and re-submitted; AICTE's notification folds the institute's verification of those re-submitted applications into the same 15 November date.

The steps, in the order they happen:

1. Watch for AICTE's notification on its Pragati page and the scheme going live on the portal.
2. Register on the National Scholarship Portal as a fresh applicant with your Aadhaar and your own bank account, then open the Pragati degree scheme form.
3. Upload the certificates and mark sheets, the income certificate, the parent's declaration and the bonafide certificate, and submit before the closing date.
4. Ask your institute's nodal officer to verify at once. AICTE's notification tells institutions to verify as soon as applications arrive, and its FAQ tells you to check every entry after submission and get the institute to correct and forward it within the portal's period.
5. Your state DTE verifies at the second level. In Maharashtra, for instance, the Directorate of Technical Education has been the state's nodal office for the scheme since 2020-21, as its Pragati page records.
6. AICTE prepares the state-wise merit list, uploads it on its portal, and pays the selected students by DBT.

Selection is on merit alone. The guidelines say the ranking is on the percentage of marks in the Class 12 or equivalent qualifying examination, and that a separate merit list is drawn up for each state and UT against the number of scholarships allotted to it. Where the mark sheet shows a CGPA, it is converted by multiplying by 9.5; where it shows both CGPA and total marks, the total marks are used; where it shows letter grades, they are turned into a CGPA first and then into a percentage. Ties are broken by the higher percentage in the Class 10 examination, and if that fails, the older candidate is ranked higher.

The quota is where a good percentage becomes a scholarship or does not. The 5,000 degree awards are shared out across 23 states and UTs, as the Pragati FAQ puts it, and the guidelines distribute them in proportion to each state's share of allotted degree seats in AICTE-approved institutions, with a floor of 50 and a cap of 800 per state.

In practice the list runs past the earmarked number because the north-eastern states and the smaller UTs are uncapped. AICTE's published list of selected students for 2025-26%20A.Y.%202025-26.pdf) runs to serial number 5060, arranged state by state. AICTE puts up a provisional list of shortlisted candidates on its portal first, and a candidate who disputes her place in the merit list has one month from the date of publication to raise a grievance; after that no query about the list is entertained.

The fine print in the guidelines is short, and most of it bites at the verification stage. Incomplete applications are summarily rejected, and only online applications that the institute has verified are considered for the award. The scheme is implemented and monitored by AICTE itself, not by the state, even though the state DTE does the second check. A reserved-category student who qualifies on the general list is counted in the general category.

Money can flow back. Accept any other scholarship, emolument, salary or stipend during the course and the scholarship is discontinued, with the entire amount to be refunded by demand draft to the Member Secretary, AICTE. The parent's declaration in the FAQ document carries the same undertaking in the parent's name: if the information is found false or the conditions are violated or a double payment is released, the sanction is cancelled, the amount is recovered from the parent, and penal action can follow. Two clocks run from the day the merit list goes up: one month to question the list, six months to fix a wrong bank account.

AICTE runs the scheme from its office at Nelson Mandela Marg, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi-110070, the address on the letterhead of its 2026-27 notification. For questions about the scheme itself the Pragati FAQ gives a dedicated helpline, pragati@aicte-india.org and 011-29581118, and for trouble with the portal it points to the National Scholarship Portal helpdesk at helpdesk@nsp.gov.in. Questions about your own application after submission go to your institute first, which is the office that can correct and forward it, and to your state's Directorate of Technical Education, which does the second verification.