Scholarships for Top Class Education for students with Disabilities, DNH & DD(SCHOLARSHIPTCESD)

Overview

About SCHOLARSHIPTCESD

Scholarships for Top Class Education for students with Disabilities, DNH & DD is the union territory's listing of a Government of India award, and the fact that shapes it is geographic. The Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (DEPwD) pays it only at institutes it has notified, and none of them is in Dadra & Nagar Haveli, Daman or Diu, so a UT student who wins it is studying somewhere else. For 2026-27, the UT's notice gives 31 October 2026 as the last date for student applications on the National Scholarship Portal (NSP).

DEPwD owns the scheme from New Delhi: its guidelines fix what is paid and who qualifies, and the final selection runs on NSP. The Social Welfare Department of the UT Administration, at Moti Daman, has a narrower job, announcing each year's window to students and institutions in Silvassa, Daman and Diu.

The UT's notices have filed it as a central award every year. The 2023-24 notice placed it under DEPwD and told students to log in to NSP and select "Central Schemes", with an income limit of Rs 8.00 lakh. The 2024-25 notice put it among the Central Sector Schemes, and the 2026-27 notice lists it under "Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (Central Sector)" as a welfare-based scheme.

The list of notified institutes annexed to DEPwD's September 2024 guidelines has no entry in any of the UT's three districts. Gujarat, which borders all three, has several, among them Sardar Vallabhbhai National Institute of Technology and the Indian Institute of Information Technology in Surat, AIIMS Rajkot, IIT Gandhinagar, IIM Ahmedabad, the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad and Gujarat National Law University in Gandhinagar.

In practice, then, the UT listing serves a resident with a disability who has already taken a graduate or postgraduate seat at one of the listed institutes through that institute's own admission process, from a family whose income stays within the Rs 8 lakh ceiling in DEPwD's guidelines.

Who runs it

Provider

At a glance

Key details

Calendar

Important dates

In the UT's last three notices, the student deadline moved from 31 December to 31 October, with institute verification due on 15 November in both later years.

NSP's scheme list shows the 2026-27 round open from 1 June 2026 and carries the same four closing dates the UT's notice prints for this scheme.

Who can apply

Eligibility criteria

The six conditions under this heading are myScheme's, and two of them read differently once they are set beside DEPwD's text and the UT's notices.

"A student with disability" means a benchmark disability, 40% or more as the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 defines it, and since DEPwD's memorandum of 4 September 2025 the proof is a Unique Disability ID (UDID) card together with an Aadhaar card. A UT student still waiting for a UDID can apply for one on the Swavlamban card portal alone, at a Common Service Centre or at a Saral Seva Kendra, as the UT's 2026-27 notice advises.

"Must belong to DNH&DD" is the listing's own filter. Among DEPwD's general eligibility conditions the only one about a student's origin is Indian nationality, per the guidelines. On paper, the UT has loosened its own demand: the 2024-25 notice listed a DNH & DD domicile certificate among the compulsory documents, and the 2026-27 notice asks for one "wherever applicable".

Who cannot apply

Exclusions

Neither the myScheme record nor the UT's notices list an exclusion written for Top Class alone. The course bars come from DEPwD's guidelines, which refuse distance-learning, part-time and weekend study and award a person Top Class only once.

On holding a second scholarship, the UT's wording has changed. Its 2023-24 and 2024-25 notices allowed a student only one of the central scholarships for SC, ST, OBC, EBC, disability and minority students. The 2026-27 notice sorts schemes into merit-based and welfare-based and permits one of the first alongside any number of the second, but only as each scheme's guidelines allow. For this welfare-based award that proviso is decisive, because DEPwD's text stops Top Class payments from the day the scholar accepts any other scholarship or stipend.

Continuation

Renewal conditions

The UT's notices have grown more specific about renewal. The 2023-24 and 2024-25 notices said only that an award, once made, stays payable to the end of the course subject to performance and attendance under the guidelines. The 2026-27 notice names four tests: promotion to the next class or year, satisfactory academic performance, attendance, and the institution's verification on NSP.

For a Top Class scholar from the UT, the institution doing that verifying is the notified institute in another state. DEPwD's September 2025 memorandum also took the State Nodal Officer's check out of Top Class renewals, which makes the campus check the one a renewal cannot do without.

What you get

Award & benefits

The benefit list printed with this listing is myScheme's, and it departs from DEPwD's text on four heads.

On maintenance, the record has the two rates the wrong way round: DEPwD's guidelines pay Rs 3,000 a month to hostellers and Rs 1,500 to day scholars, and the UT's own 2023-24 notice also printed the Rs 3,000 rate against hostellers. A day scholar budgeting from the record would expect twice the maintenance the guidelines pay.

The same 2023-24 notice showed one ceiling of Rs 2.00 lakh a year for tuition and non-refundable charges together. DEPwD's current guidelines split that into admission and tuition fees of up to Rs 1.90 lakh a year and the separate head of up to Rs 10,000, and the record's tuition, book and special-allowance figures agree with them.

• Reimbursement of admission and tuition fees up to ₹1.90 lakh per annum.
• Maintenance allowance: ₹3,000/- per month for day scholars and ₹1,500/- per month for hostellers.
• Book allowance of ₹5,000/- per annum.
• One-time laptop/computer grant up to ₹45,000/- in the first year.
• One-time assistive devices grant up to ₹30,000/-.
• Special disability-related allowances such as reader, escort, or helper allowance up to ₹2,000/- per month.

What to prepare

Documents required

In the UT, the domicile and income certificates on the listing's document list are issued by the Mamlatdar's office, with one extra route for income in the villages of Daman and Diu.

Uploads have to be originals, not copies: the UT's notices for 2023-24, 2024-25 and 2026-27 each say so for the compulsory certificates.

Step by step

How to apply

Applications for this award are taken only on NSP, under DEPwD's guidelines. Three points decide whether a UT student's form reaches selection:

1. Choose the right scheme. NSP's scheme list carries several Top Class awards, and this one appears as "Scholarship For Top Class Education For Students With Disabilities (Welfare Based Scheme)". A One Time Registration (OTR) number, generated from Aadhaar or an Aadhaar enrolment number, comes before the form, per the UT's 2026-27 notice.
2. Get the institute to verify. The institution where you are enrolled registers on NSP and checks what you submitted, under the guidelines. For a student from Daman at SVNIT Surat or IIM Ahmedabad, that is the institute's nodal officer on campus, not anyone at Moti Daman, so tell the nodal officer once your form is in.
3. Fix a defective form in time. For 2026-27, applications sent back as defective have to be corrected by 15 November 2026, per the UT's 2026-27 notice.

Checking Status and Payment on NSP

Once the form is submitted, "Application Status" on the NSP home page shows where it stands. When the award is paid, "Track Your Payment" on that page opens the Public Financial Management System's Know Your Payment search, and money that shows as paid but has not reached the bank account is for the PFMS helpdesk, toll-free on 1800 118 111 according to the NSP helpdesk page.

How winners are picked

Selection process

A student from the UT is ranked on a single national list, by the disability percentage on the certificate with the older applicant ahead in a tie, for a pool DEPwD's guidelines fix at 300 awards a year, renewals included.

Until September 2025, that pool was first divided among the states. DEPwD's memorandum rewrote paragraph 7(h) so that final selection is made against "slots available for fresh applications" instead of slots "distributed state wise", which means no separate share is now calculated for DNH & DD.

Fine print

Terms & conditions

Paragraph 9 of DEPwD's guidelines holds the conditions that can end a Top Class award mid-course, from a false statement in the application to a change of subject or poor progress reported by the head of the institution. The UT's 2026-27 notice sends students and institutes to the scheme guidelines on the portal rather than restating them.

Get help

Contact

The UT office is the Social Welfare Department, UT Administration of Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu, District Court Premises, Fort Area, Moti Daman 396220, on 0260-2230854 or at swosw-dmn-dd@gov.in, as its 2024-25 notice gives them. An institute with a scholarship query can message the department's scholarship cell on WhatsApp at 9537500045 during office hours, per the 2026-27 notice.

For problems with the portal itself, NSP's helpdesk answers on 0120-6619540 from 8 AM to 8 PM every day except government holidays, and at helpdesk@nsp.gov.in, according to the NSP helpdesk page.

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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