Savitribai Jyotirao Phule Fellowship For Single Girl Child(SJPFSGC)

The scheme record publishes no opening or closing date, and that blank is accurate: there is no standing annual window. The one completed cycle opened on September 5, 2022, per The Hindu, and closed with the provisional result of February 7, 2023 in UGC's notification.

Since then the calendar has been the story. The Hindu's March 2024 report describes scholars, their association and a Member of Parliament pressing UGC for the round that never came for 2023-24. A petition by research scholars started in January 2026 says an RTI reply from UGC confirms the scheme is active and paying its existing awardees while a new call remains under consideration of higher authorities. Treat any date on a coaching or aggregator site as unofficial until a notification appears on ugc.ac.in itself.

Being the family's only girl and holding a regular, full-time PhD registration are the two conditions the scheme record states plainly, so they need no repeating here. What applicants routinely miss is a condition that lives only in the scheme guidelines: where the PhD is registered matters as much as who the scholar is.

The fellowship is not open at every recognised institution. The 2022 guidelines restrict it to research pursued in four categories: central and state universities covered under section 2(f) of the UGC Act, 1956 that hold valid NAAC accreditation, deemed universities under section 3 of the Act with valid NAAC accreditation, institutions fully funded by central or state governments and empowered to award degrees, and Institutions of National Importance. A PhD seat at a university outside these categories, or at a university whose NAAC accreditation has lapsed, does not carry the fellowship however strong the scholar's record.

One further reading note: the age ceiling is reckoned as on the last date of the online application window, not the date you registered for your PhD. A scholar who crosses the limit mid-round is judged by that closing date.

The disqualifications the record states, having a brother or sister and pursuing the PhD part-time or through distance mode, are only the visible half. The guidelines add four more that surface at verification rather than at form-filling.

A scholar who has already availed any PhD fellowship, fully or partially, under any scheme cannot take this one. A scholar who held a fellowship earlier and did not complete her research in its tenure cannot apply again. Non-teaching employees of a university, college, higher educational institution or government are barred even while on study leave or extraordinary leave for the PhD. And the fellowship does not fund an MPhil at all. Each of these is checked by the institution when it processes the claim, which is why a provisional selection can still end in no payment.

There is no annual re-application. Continuation runs on assessed progress, and the structure comes from the scheme guidelines: the first two years run at the Junior Research Fellow stage, after which a three-member committee of the supervisor, the head of department and one outside subject expert examines the research. A satisfactory report upgrades the scholar to Senior Research Fellow for the remaining tenure at the higher rate. An unsatisfactory one buys a third year at the JRF rate with a fresh evaluation after it, and a scholar still found wanting then loses the fellowship.

The committee's report is not a formality for the institution to file away. The guidelines direct that it be uploaded to the payment portal, and monthly payments stop beyond the third year if it is missing. A scholar whose fellowship halts around that mark should ask her registrar's office about this report before assuming UGC has cut her off.

Two different sets of figures circulate for this fellowship, and both are official; the difference is the age of the page you are reading. The 2022 guidelines print the JRF at Rs 31,000 and the SRF at Rs 35,000 a month, and news reports from the launch period carry those figures. UGC's scheme page now states the revised rates, which are what a current awardee draws:

A Divyang scholar draws escort or reader assistance of Rs 3,000 a month on top of these rates, under the guidelines. The tenure, hostel and HRA arrangements, leave entitlements and the intermittent-break provision for women scholars are set out verbatim in the scheme record and are worth reading in full before you plan around them.

One document decides this application: the affidavit proving the scholar is a single girl child. The guidelines want it from the parents on Rs 100 stamp paper in the prescribed proforma, attested by an SDM, a First Class Magistrate or a Tahsildar, with the guardian signing in place of parents who have died. UGC's result notification is blunt about the attestation: an affidavit attested by a notary, or by an officer below the rank of Tahsildar, will not be considered. Getting this executed correctly before the window opens is the single best preparation an eligible scholar can do; the other items, the research proposal and abstract a registered scholar already holds and the auto-generated form her HoD or Registrar countersigns, take coordination rather than lead time.

Rounds are announced, not scheduled. The guidelines say applications are invited once a year through advertisements in leading newspapers and Employment News, with a short notification on ugc.ac.in, and the form itself runs on UGC's fellowship portal, frg.ugc.ac.in, the address the UGC scheme page points to. There is no offline route and no form to collect from any office.

Tracking is the part no notification spells out in one place, so here is how the trail actually runs. Selection results appear as a notification on the UGC site, and each selected scholar downloads her award letter from her own login on the portal, per the result notification. Payment does not run through the National Scholarship Portal at all, so checking scholarships.gov.in for this fellowship finds nothing. Instead the institution links the scholar on UGC's Canara Bank scholarship payment portal and uploads her joining report, certificate and affidavit there, per the same notification.

The monthly rhythm after that belongs to the institution, and knowing it tells you where a stuck payment sits. Under the guidelines, the scholar gives her institution a monthly confirmation certificate in the first week of the following month, the institution checks and uploads every claim on the portal on or before the 15th of every month, and payment generates only after the institution's approval of the uploaded data. A missing month is therefore usually a missing upload or approval at the university's end, and the officials to ask are the two permanent staff the institution authorised on the portal, before writing to UGC.

UGC runs no entrance test or interview for this fellowship, and publishes no merit formula either. The guidelines tie the number of slots each year to the eligible applications received complete in all respects, which makes completeness of the application the effective selection rule. In the only round held so far, UGC notified its provisional result on February 7, 2023, and stated in the notification that selection rests on the information candidates gave and that the institution must confirm eligibility before processing any claim. A research scholar quoted by The Hindu put that first cohort at 1,129 awardees.

Selection also expires if unused: the candidate must join the fellowship within three months of the award letter being issued, failing which the guidelines treat the award as cancelled.

The condition with the sharpest edge is the one-benefit rule. A fellow under this scheme draws no other scholarship, fellowship, salary, stipend or emolument from any source for the whole tenure, and a scholar already holding one must declare it and give one of the two up if selected, per the guidelines. She may apply for other fellowships or posts without UGC's no-objection certificate, but selection elsewhere means resigning this one.

Three other clauses in the same guidelines deserve a careful read before accepting the award. A change of research institution is allowed only once in the tenure, with no-objection certificates from both institutions and no fellowship for the gap between leaving one and joining the other. A scholar who resigns midway becomes ineligible for every other PhD fellowship afterwards. And UGC can terminate for false information, adverse institutional reports, unsatisfactory progress or plagiarism, and can recover the paid amount with interest.

The scheme is administered by UGC's Selection and Awards Bureau at Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi, the office named on the guidelines. The scholarship helpline numbers and the helpdesk email UGC publishes for its fellowship schemes are part of the official scheme record.