Scholarship For Differently Abled Students(SDAS)

Overview

About SDAS

Two numbers settle this scholarship before any other question is reached: a combined family income no higher than Rs 36,000 a year, and 40 percent in the previous year's examination. Kerala's Social Justice Department writes the second as an instruction rather than a preference, telling students who fell below it that they need not apply (Social Justice Department, Kerala). Clear both and the amount is fixed by two things that are equally out of the applicant's hands: the class being studied, and whether the student lives in a hostel.

The department runs this as one continuous rate card rather than as a school scheme and a separate college scheme. Its SUNEETHI portal, which takes online applications for 31 departmental services, 14 of them for differently abled applicants, describes it as the scholarship for differently abled children studying in schools and colleges from Class 1 up to PG and professional courses (SUNEETHI, Social Justice Department). The same student can sit inside it in Class 3 and again in an MSc, at different figures.

What marks it off from the department's other education aid is whose disability is being certified. Here it is the student's own, at 40 percent or more, and only in four named categories: blind, deaf, orthopedically handicapped, mental retardation. That four-way list is narrower than the test the central schemes work from, which admits any specified disability certified at 40 percent or more under the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 (Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities scheme guidelines). A certificate that satisfies the central portal does not by itself answer the state's category question.

The income line deserves checking first, because it sits far lower here than in the scheme next to it. Rs 36,000 a year is the ceiling for this scholarship, while the department's distance education scholarship for students with disabilities allows a family income of up to Rs 1,00,000 (SUNEETHI scheme criteria). A household comfortably inside one of the department's other aids can fail this one on income alone.

Who runs it

Provider

At a glance

Key details

Calendar

Important dates

No calendar date is published, and none is coming. The window is measured against the student's own year: applications are due after the academic year commences, within three months (Social Justice Department, Kerala). The deadline therefore moves with the course, falling three months after classes begin, whenever that happens to be for the student. The scheme record leaves both the opening and the closing date blank (Scholarship For Differently Abled Students, myScheme), so nothing is going to arrive as a reminder.

Who can apply

Eligibility criteria

Residence, certificate, marks and income are tested together and none of them is weighted: failing any one ends the application. The residence condition is not on the department's scheme page at all, and comes from the scheme record, which puts the applicant as a permanent resident of Kerala (Scholarship For Differently Abled Students, myScheme). The rest are on the department's page, which pairs a disability of 40 percent or more with 40 percent marks in the previous year's examination and a combined family income not exceeding Rs 36,000 (Social Justice Department, Kerala).

The marks condition is the one most often misread, because it looks like a merit rule and is not one. It orders nobody and rewards no higher score. It is a floor, phrased on the department's page as a sentence addressed to the students underneath it. Nothing published says how it applies to a child entering Class 1, who has no previous year's examination to report, and that gap is answered by the District Social Justice Office rather than by the criteria.

Who cannot apply

Exclusions

The department attaches no exclusion clause to this scholarship, and the silence is specific to it rather than a general habit. On the same criteria page, Vidyakiranam carries a bar on students already drawing educational assistance under another scheme, and the distance education scholarship carries a bar on anyone receiving assistance under any other central or state scheme (SUNEETHI scheme criteria). Neither sentence is written under this one.

The restriction that does bite comes from the other direction. Under the central schemes for students with disabilities, payment to a scholar stops from the date another scholarship or stipend is accepted (Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities scheme guidelines), which makes the two awards alternatives rather than a stack. The choice, in other words, is forced by New Delhi and not by Thiruvananthapuram.

Continuation

Renewal conditions

Nothing published for this scholarship describes a renewal, and nothing published describes a duration either. The rate card gives a monthly figure and stops. The department does fix a length elsewhere, capping Vidyakiranam at a maximum of 10 months for every class, but writes no equivalent line here (SUNEETHI scheme criteria). What the published rules do imply is a fresh application each year, since the window is measured from the commencement of the academic year (Social Justice Department, Kerala). How many months a sanction actually covers is a question for the district office holding the file.

What you get

Award & benefits

Rates are monthly and split three ways: a day-scholar rate, a hostel rate that only begins at the higher secondary stage, and a reader's allowance. A hosteller in Class 8 therefore draws exactly what a classmate who goes home draws, because the hostel column carries a dash for every school band on the department's table.

Those figures date from a single revision and have stood since. A government order of the Social Justice (A) Department, dated 26 September 2016, replaced an older card on which a day scholar in Class 1 to Class 4 drew Rs 100 a month and one in Class 5 to Class 10 drew Rs 125, and it lifted the reader's allowance at those bands from Rs 50 to Rs 200 (Social Justice Department, government order revising the scholarship rates). The revised column in that order is the column the department still publishes today.

The reader's allowance is not an extra that every awardee collects. The department restricts it to blind students, the 2016 order prints the column under a heading that names them, and SUNEETHI lists a separate certificate for it among this scheme's papers (SUNEETHI scheme criteria). A deaf or orthopedically handicapped student draws the scholarship column and nothing beside it.

No cap on the number of awards is published for this scheme, in a department that does print caps when it means them: Vidyajyothi, which funds study materials and uniforms, is written as 50 children per district at the school bands and 30 at degree and PG (SUNEETHI scheme criteria). Read the absence as an absence, not as an assurance that every admissible file is sanctioned.

• The scholarship is being provided to students whose disability percentage is 40% or above on the following basis:
• Sl. No.StandardDay ScholarsHostel StudentsReader’s allowance1Students from Class 1 to Class 4₹300/- per month-₹200/- per month2Students from Class 5 to Class 10₹500/- per month-₹200/- per month3+1, +2, IT Equivalent courses₹750/- per month₹1000/- per month₹300/- per month4Degree, Polytechnic, Equivalent training courses, (Implant training) ₹1000/- per month₹1500/- per month₹400/- per month5Professional, PG courses₹1000/- per month₹1500/- per month₹400/- per month

What to prepare

Documents required

Two of the papers have to be obtained from someone else, and each takes its own trip. The disability proof has to be an attested copy of the certificate from a Medical Board, and the income proof an income certificate from the concerned Village Officer, which is a revenue-office document that no school and no employer can substitute for (Social Justice Department, Kerala). The three-month window keeps running while they are being collected.

The third paper belongs to the institution. The head of the school or college certifies the application, and a blind applicant files a separate certificate for the reader's allowance beside it (SUNEETHI scheme criteria). The head's certificate is not a formality here: it is what puts the file into the departmental route at all.

Step by step

How to apply

The route runs through the institution rather than around it. SUNEETHI states that the application is submitted to the District Social Justice Officer through the head of the institution (SUNEETHI scheme criteria), and the department's scheme page says the same from the receiving end: duly filled forms go to the concerned District Social Justice Officer, and a form that arrives incomplete or late is rejected rather than returned for correction (Social Justice Department, Kerala). The scheme record names only the SUNEETHI portal and the department's own printed form as the ways in (Scholarship For Differently Abled Students, myScheme).

Online, that means SUNEETHI. It opens on a one-time registration, and afterwards the citizen login asks for the mobile number given at registration together with a password (SUNEETHI citizen login). Filing it yourself, on your own computer and connection, carries no fee; an Akshaya centre or another service centre may charge its applicable service rate (SUNEETHI, Social Justice Department).

Tracking the application. No public status lookup exists for this scholarship. A file submitted online stays inside the SUNEETHI account that submitted it, reached with the same registration mobile number and password (SUNEETHI citizen login), and a file submitted on paper leaves no trace outside the office it was handed to. The only timing the portal will commit to is the Right to Service limit, and it describes that clock as running once an application has been approved rather than from the day it was filed (SUNEETHI, Social Justice Department). Until sanction, the district office is the only place that can see the file at all.

How winners are picked

Selection process

No merit list, no ranking and no tie-breaker is published for this scholarship. What the department publishes is a two-step verification: the head of the institution certifies the application, and the District Social Justice Officer sanctions it (SUNEETHI scheme criteria). Nothing in that text sets one admissible applicant against another, which is a real difference from the department's distance education scholarship, whose criteria say that where applicants exceed the places, preference goes by qualifying marks (SUNEETHI scheme criteria).

Fine print

Terms & conditions

The conditions that actually cost applicants the money are procedural rather than financial. The form has to be filled in completely, and the department states that incomplete applications and late applications alike will be rejected (Social Justice Department, Kerala). The disability certificate has to be an attested copy and the income certificate has to come from the Village Officer, so a file reaching the district office with an unattested photocopy, or with income asserted rather than certified, is incomplete in the sense the department means, whatever else is inside it. Nothing published makes a sanctioned amount repayable, and nothing published attaches a service or study condition after payment.

Get help

Contact

The office that decides is the District Social Justice Officer for the student's own district, and the file reaches it through the head of the institution (SUNEETHI scheme criteria). Nothing about this scholarship is filed at the directorate.

The directorate is where a grievance belongs instead: the Director, Social Justice Department, Vikas Bhavan, PMG, Thiruvananthapuram 695033, and swdkerala@gmail.com (SUNEETHI, Social Justice Department). Two landlines are published for that office, +91 471 2306040 and +91 471 2302887 (Social Justice Department, Kerala).

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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