Scholarship for Chhattisgarh Students Studying Outside the State(SFCSSOTS)

No fixed annual calendar exists for this scheme, and there is a second problem with dates here worth knowing before you plan around them. Each session gets its own advertisement, and the pattern in the Directorate's own published notices is an announcement in the second half of the academic year with a cut-off a few months later.

The Directorate's website has stopped responding, so its scholarship papers can now be read only through the Internet Archive, and the newest one whose text survives there is the session 2022-23 advertisement. The notice board entry for the following session preserves its date and nothing else; the file attached to it was never captured. Everything in the table below is the last position the Directorate is known to have published, not evidence that a window is open now.

A student in the first year is the one under real time pressure, since the fresh award has to be claimed in the year of admission and the window can close in mid-session. Ask the Directorate's office, or your own college, for the advertisement covering the session you are actually in rather than working to the dates above.

Being from Chhattisgarh is not the same as having gone to school in Chhattisgarh, and this scheme cares about both. The residence side is settled by a native residence certificate issued by a competent authority, which the Directorate's advertisement treats as mandatory rather than optional supporting paper. The schooling side is the condition applicants most often miss: the qualifying examination has to have been passed through a Chhattisgarh examining body, with an exemption written in only for the children of permanent Chhattisgarh government employees posted on deputation.

Where the student sits in the course matters too. The Directorate's application form is headed for a fresh award in the first year and a vacant award in the second, third or fourth year, so a later-year student is applying against an award that has fallen free rather than against a fresh quota. If the institution is private, its AICTE approval for the institution and the course has to be proved on paper. A student in full-time employment is outside the scheme; part-time work alongside regular study is the only concession.

Nothing is published as an exclusion list, and in practice the rejections happen at the counter rather than at the merit stage. The advertisement states that an incomplete application, an application not made on the prescribed form, or one that arrives after the last date will not be considered, and that no claim or representation will be entertained on a late application afterwards. Holding another scholarship at the same time is barred unless the government has specially sanctioned it, and the applicant signs a declaration that no other scholarship is being drawn from any source.

Renewal here is not a formality, and it is blocked by a piece of paper most applicants do not expect. A continuing student applies again the following year with the previous year's passed mark sheet and with the receipt showing that the earlier year's sanctioned amount was actually collected through the head of the institution, the whole thing recommended once more by that head. Until that receipt reaches the Directorate, the next year's award cannot be sanctioned at all, according to the session 2022-23 advertisement.

That condition is newer than the scheme. In the Directorate's earlier Other State Scholarship advertisement, the one whose last date was 31 January 2011, a renewal was a plain-paper application carrying the previous year's mark sheet, with no receipt in the chain.

The rate is fixed per month and does not vary with the course, the institution or the family's means. What varies is the number of fresh awards the Directorate advertises in a session, which is small enough that the merit position of an applicant matters more than the eligibility list suggests.

The institution's own bank account details, including IFSC, MICR and branch code, are collected on the form for that transfer, which is why the head of the institution has to sign the form before it leaves the campus.

Beyond the residence certificate, the mark sheet and the admission proof, the Directorate's enclosure list asks for attested copies of every board or university mark sheet from Class 12 onward, not just the qualifying one, plus the AICTE approval letter for the institution and course where the college is private, and a certificate signed by the head of the institution.

The form itself also asks for Aadhaar number, the student's bank name, branch, account number and IFSC, a permanent Chhattisgarh address and a mobile number. Collect the two certificates first: the residence certificate takes the longest to obtain, and the head of the institution's certificate cannot be signed until every other entry on the form is complete.

The form is free. It can be collected in person from the Directorate at Nava Raipur or downloaded from the Directorate's website, and the same prescribed format is what a college office hands over when a student asks for it there. Once filled and signed, it does not go to the Directorate by post from the student: it is forwarded by the head of the institution, with the enclosures and the head's own certificate, addressed to the Director, so that it reaches Nava Raipur by the last date printed on that session's advertisement (Other State Scholarship advertisement, session 2022-23).

Tracking works differently here, because the scheme runs on paper end to end and nothing about a submitted form ever appears on a screen. Ask for an acknowledgement from whoever takes the form in the college office, note the date and time on it, and follow up with that office rather than with the Directorate; the next confirmation you will see is the receipt you sign when the institution hands the money over. Students who do have a login to check are on a different scheme entirely: the state's Post Matric Scholarship Portal belongs to the ST, SC, OBC and Minority Development departments, not to Technical Education.

Eligibility gets an application read; it does not win an award. The applications the Directorate sanctions are drawn against the small number of fresh awards advertised for that session, and the head of the institution's recommendation is part of what the Directorate weighs, since an unrecommended form is not forwarded at all. For the later years, an award that falls vacant during its tenure passes to the next eligible and deserving candidate on the merit list for the unexpired period. No scoring formula beyond the marks threshold and that merit ordering is published.

The conditions the head of the institution certifies go further than academics. The certificate on the form records that the applicant is a regular student still continuing studies in the session, that the entries on the form have been verified, that conduct is good and that the student took no part in any subversive activity including a strike, and it ends with an express recommendation for the award.

After the money is paid out, the institution files a utilisation certificate with the Directorate naming the sanction order and the date of payment, with the student's receipt attached. A fee concession already given by the institution is not affected by the scholarship and may continue.

Completed applications are addressed to the Director, Directorate of Technical Education, Chhattisgarh, at Indrawati Bhavan, Block-3, third and fourth floors, Nava Raipur, Atal Nagar, District Raipur 492002. The advertisement letterhead carries 0771-2331331 and 2221376 as the office numbers and 0771-2253620 as the fax, and the website printed beside them on the same letterhead no longer responds.

Realistically, though, the office that can help you is your own institution's. It forwards the file, it receives the sanctioned money and it issues the receipt without which the following year's award cannot be sanctioned, none of which the Directorate can do for you over a phone line.