Pre Matric Scholarship For Students With Disabilities(PRE-DIS)

Overview

About PRE-DIS

The Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (DEPwD), under the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, funds 25,000 pre-matric slots a year, and that ceiling counts renewal cases as well as new applicants (Revised guidelines, Scholarships for Students with Disabilities). In 2024-25 the department paid 9,938 pre-matric students and released Rs 10.22 crore against them, on its own scheme-wise release statement (DEPwD, scheme-wise and year-wise releases).

This is the Classes IX and X line of a central sector umbrella scheme, and it behaves nothing like the post-matriculation awards a family may have heard about. There is no fee reimbursement in it at all. DEPwD's own scheme page lists the component as carrying no tuition fee and paying instead a monthly maintenance allowance, an annual book grant and an annual disability allowance (DEPwD, Pre-Matric Scholarship for Students with Disabilities).

The rules a 2026-27 applicant is judged against sit in two documents. The umbrella guidelines were reissued on 25 September 2024, and an office memorandum dated 4 September 2025 amended them again (DEPwD scholarship notices). That memorandum left the pre-matric rates alone. What it did change matters anyway: it named the Unique Disability Identity (UDID) card in the general eligibility conditions, moved the recommendation of an out-of-state fresh application to the state where the student is studying rather than the state of permanent residence, and dropped the formula that used to split slots between states (Office memorandum dated 4 September 2025).

A capped scheme is not necessarily an oversubscribed one. The 9,938 pre-matric beneficiaries recorded for 2024-25 (DEPwD, scheme-wise and year-wise releases) sit a long way below the 25,000 slot ceiling (Revised guidelines, Scholarships for Students with Disabilities). What the release statement does not record is how many students applied, so the gap between the two figures is not on its own a measure of how hard the award is to win.

Who runs it

Provider

At a glance

Key details

Calendar

Important dates

The guidelines set no calendar for this component, and the scheme record carries no open or close date either. NSP publishes the window afresh for each academic year, and the 2026-27 set is the one running now.

The portal itself opened for 2026-27 on 1 June 2026 (National Scholarship Portal), but this component was not switched on with it and began taking student applications only on 25 July 2026 (Schemes on the National Scholarship Portal).

The pre-matric student window is also the shortest of the three DEPwD lines on the portal. Post-matric and top class both stay open to students until 31 October 2026, a full month past the pre-matric close of 30 September 2026 (Schemes on the National Scholarship Portal).

The two verification dates after the student close are not administrative trivia. If the school has not completed institute verification by 15 October 2026, a correctly filed application still dies there (Schemes on the National Scholarship Portal).

Who can apply

Eligibility criteria

Only Indian nationals with a benchmark disability qualify, which the guidelines define as 40% or more disability under the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016. September 2025 rewrote what an applicant has to hold. The general eligibility conditions now name the UDID card and Aadhaar, which makes the card a threshold document rather than an optional extra for a household that has only ever produced the disability certificate (Office memorandum dated 4 September 2025). DEPwD's own scheme page lists the same two under what a student has to keep ready (DEPwD, Pre-Matric Scholarship for Students with Disabilities).

The academic test is narrow and easy to fail on a technicality. The candidate has to be a regular, full-time student in Class IX or Class X, in a government school, a school recognised by the government, or one recognised by a Central or State Board of Secondary Education. Part-time and correspondence study has no route in at this level (Revised guidelines, Scholarships for Students with Disabilities).

Household income from all sources is capped at Rs 2.5 lakh a year for the parent or guardian, and no more than two children with disabilities of the same parents may draw the benefit, with twins treated as an exception where the second child is a twin (Revised guidelines, Scholarships for Students with Disabilities).

Who cannot apply

Exclusions

Holding a second award is the disqualification most families walk into. It is written as a continuing condition, not a box ticked once at the top of the form: a scholar under this scheme will not avail any other scholarship or stipend, and payment stops from the date the other award is accepted (Revised guidelines, Scholarships for Students with Disabilities).

That sits awkwardly beside a portal rule worth understanding. From AY 2026-27 the National Scholarship Portal lets a student apply for one merit-based scheme and one or more welfare-based schemes, subject to each scheme's own eligibility criteria, and the pre-matric scholarship for students with disabilities is listed there as welfare-based (National Scholarship Portal). The portal decides what may be applied for; the scheme decides what may be held. A Class IX student can sit inside both rules at once, having filed legitimately for a second welfare scheme and being unable to take it up if this one is sanctioned.

Repeating a class ends the funding for that class. A scholarship for any given class is available for one year only, so a student who sits Class IX again gets nothing for the repeat year (Revised guidelines, Scholarships for Students with Disabilities).

Continuation

Renewal conditions

Moving from Class IX to Class X is a renewal, not a fresh application. Promotion is the whole test: once granted, the award holds to the end of the course rather than being re-decided on merit each year, so long as the child reaches the higher class and the school has nothing to say against conduct or attendance (Revised guidelines, Scholarships for Students with Disabilities).

The concession that forgives a first failure is written for the post-matric component and does not reach down to this one. A pre-matric scholar who does not clear Class IX has no funded year to fall back on, because the one-year-per-class rule has already used it up (Revised guidelines, Scholarships for Students with Disabilities).

One step of the renewal paperwork got shorter in 2025. Verification by the State Nodal Officer is no longer required on a renewal application, which leaves the school's verification as the check that actually holds up a Class X payment (Office memorandum dated 4 September 2025).

Renewals are also why a fresh applicant should file early rather than late. All renewal cases are processed first, and fresh cases are considered only against the slots left over, so meeting every eligibility test does not by itself entitle a student to the award. Slots can also be moved between the pre-matric, post-matric and top class components where one of them draws too few applications, subject to the approved financial outlay and the approval of the Secretary, DEPwD (Revised guidelines, Scholarships for Students with Disabilities).

What you get

Award & benefits

Three components make up the award, and the disability allowance is the only one that varies with the type of disability.

Searches for this scheme often expect a reader allowance, an escort allowance or a helper allowance as separate lines, because those words appear in the same department's material. They are not part of the pre-matric award. The guidelines put that special allowance, related to types of disability and set at Rs 2,000 per month, under the Top Class Education component for graduate and postgraduate study. At Classes IX and X the single annual disability allowance in the table is the whole of the disability-related money (Revised guidelines, Scholarships for Students with Disabilities).

Whether the first instalment lands in April or later turns on the admission date. Payment is a month count rather than a flat annual sum: it opens with April, or with the month of admission where the child joined later than that, and shuts with the month the examinations are completed, while an admission dated after the 20th day of a month pushes the first instalment into the month after (Revised guidelines, Scholarships for Students with Disabilities).

• Maintenance Allowance (₹ per Month): Day Scholars: 500, Hostellers: 800.1. Book Grant: ₹ 1000/- per annum.1. Disability Allowances (₹ per Annum):
• Visually Impaired: ₹4,000.
• Hearing Impaired: ₹2,000.
• Physically Disabled (OH): ₹2,000.
• Intellectual Disabilities: ₹4,000.
• Other disabilities not covered above: ₹2,000.
• [NOTE: () means for 12 months in an academic year]

What to prepare

Documents required

The disability certificate is not the first thing to arrange, despite being the document everyone thinks of first. One step happens away from NSP altogether and blocks the rest until it is done: the student signs in on the UDID portal and consents to the sharing of those details, and NSP's own announcement says the application cannot be submitted otherwise (National Scholarship Portal).

The income certificate carries a provenance rule that catches any household without a salary slip. Self-employment is where it bites: the declaration then has to arrive as a certificate from a Revenue Officer whom the state or union territory has authorised, not as anything the family writes for itself. A salaried parent with earnings on the side needs that same officer to issue one consolidated certificate covering all of them (Revised guidelines, Scholarships for Students with Disabilities).

The bank account matters as much as the certificates. Money moves by direct benefit transfer into an account linked with Aadhaar, and the portal's operating procedure states that disbursement priority goes to Aadhaar-seeded accounts (National Scholarship Portal, standard operating procedures).

Step by step

How to apply

Applications for this component are taken online, on the National Scholarship Portal, and nowhere else. DEPwD lists three scholarships there: pre-matric, post-matric and top class for students with disabilities (Schemes on the National Scholarship Portal).

A One Time Registration number comes before the application form. Generated once from an Aadhaar number or an Aadhaar Enrolment ID, the 14-digit OTR then follows the child through every later scholarship year, and NSP has made it compulsory for applications from AY 2024-25 onwards (National Scholarship Portal). Common Service Centres offer the same NSP services to a family without a device or a steady connection, at a price NSP caps at Rs 30 per candidate, taxes included, covering everything from the reference number to the filed application (National Scholarship Portal).

What happens after submission is a seven-step pipeline, and knowing its shape is the difference between waiting patiently and chasing the right office. The application goes to Level 1 verification at the institute, then Level 2 or Level 3 verification at district, state or ministry level. Beneficiary records are created and the bank account validated by the Public Financial Management System (PFMS), applications are deduplicated and a merit list generated, a payment file is produced and financially approved, and only then is the scholarship disbursed through direct benefit transfer (National Scholarship Portal, standard operating procedures).

An application marked defective is not a rejection, and it is the stage where most recoverable applications are lost. The student has to rectify the errors and comply with the remarks recorded on the application; if the wrong institute was selected, that institute has to mark the application defective before the correction can be made. Applications marked rejected or fake by a nodal officer during verification are not processed further (National Scholarship Portal, standard operating procedures).

Tracking the Application and the Payment

Sanction and money are two different lookups, and a student who checks only one of them will draw the wrong conclusion. Application status is tracked on the portal itself, under the student login, and the portal separately carries a Track Your Payment link (National Scholarship Portal). That link opens the PFMS Know Your Payment page, which asks for the bank name and the account number entered twice, and reports what has actually been credited (PFMS, Know Your Payment).

One warning is worth reading before touching bank details. The portal allows only one chance to update the bank account, and only where the account was not validated by PFMS. Use it carelessly and the application will not be considered for the scholarship at all (National Scholarship Portal, standard operating procedures).

How winners are picked

Selection process

Merit here is not academic. Selection is ranked on the percentage of disability recorded in the disability certificate, which means a stronger board result does nothing for a candidate's position in the queue (Revised guidelines, Scholarships for Students with Disabilities).

Specific learning disability is handled by a written convention rather than left to interpretation. Those certificates do not carry a percentage and read as 40% or above, so for merit purposes every eligible specific learning disability case is taken at 40%. Where two candidates tie, the older candidate is preferred (Revised guidelines, Scholarships for Students with Disabilities).

One reservation cuts across the merit list before anything else is settled. Girls hold 50% of the year's slots by rule, and only what they leave unfilled passes to suitable male candidates (Revised guidelines, Scholarships for Students with Disabilities).

The mechanics of how the list is cut changed in September 2025. The old text distributed slots across states using state-wise disability population and state-wise share of eligible applications; that provision was deleted. A merit list is now prepared from the fresh applications verified by the state department or nodal officer, and final selection is made through the portal against the slots available for fresh applications (Office memorandum dated 4 September 2025).

Fine print

Terms & conditions

A false statement is the one failure the guidelines punish beyond the money. Sanction is withdrawn forthwith, DEPwD may recover whatever it has already released, and the guidelines put the child on a blacklist that closes off any scheme, permanently (Revised guidelines, Scholarships for Students with Disabilities).

Leaving Class IX or Class X part way through the year can cost money already banked, because a scholar who discontinues the studies the award was granted for may be asked to give it back, and whether that is pressed is DEPwD's call. The school can end it too. Where the school reports poor progress or unauthorised absence at any point in the year, DEPwD's sanctioning authority is free to cancel the award or to hold payment for whatever period it chooses (Revised guidelines, Scholarships for Students with Disabilities).

Scrutiny does not stop at sanction. The scheme is monitored through the portal, states are required to keep beneficiary lists district-wise and category-wise, and physical verification has to cover at least 10% of units at block, district and state level, chosen randomly through an algorithm (Revised guidelines, Scholarships for Students with Disabilities).

Get help

Contact

For anything about the application itself, the portal's own helpdesk is the first line: helpdesk@nsp.gov.in and 0120-6619540, staffed from 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM on all days except government holidays. Payment questions go to the PFMS helpdesk at helpdesk-pfms@gov.in and the toll free number 1800 118 111 (National Scholarship Portal helpdesk).

The school is not optional in this chain. Level 1 verification happens at the institute (National Scholarship Portal, standard operating procedures), and above it the portal publishes scheme-wise and district-wise lookups for the district and state nodal officers (National Scholarship Portal).

Correspondence about the scheme itself goes to DEPwD at B-I Wing, Pandit Deendayal Antyodaya Bhawan, CGO Complex, Lodhi Road, New Delhi 110 003, the address printed on the memorandum that last amended it (Office memorandum dated 4 September 2025).

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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