SMILE - Comprehensive Rehabilitation For Welfare Of Transgender Persons(SMILE-SCHOLARSHIP)

Overview

About SMILE-SCHOLARSHIP

SMILE is not one scheme, and the confusion costs people time. The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment runs Support for Marginalized Individuals for Livelihood and Enterprise as an umbrella with two sub-schemes under it: Comprehensive Rehabilitation for the Welfare of Transgender Persons, and Comprehensive Rehabilitation of Persons Engaged in the Act of Begging (Department of Social Justice and Empowerment). This page covers the first of those, and specifically the scholarship inside it, which is the component that pays money into a transgender student's own bank account.

The transgender sub-scheme carries seven components, not one. The scheme guidelines list them as scholarships for transgender students, skill development and livelihood, composite medical health, housing in the form of Garima Greh, e-services covering the National Portal and helpline, provision of a Transgender Protection Cell, and other welfare measures (SMILE guidelines, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment). Only some of them take an application from a person at all. The rest are grants the Ministry releases to community based organisations, to the National Health Authority, and to state governments or district administrations that send in a proposal, and the table sets out which door belongs to whom.

The objective the guidelines set for the scholarship is to give financial assistance to transgender students studying in class IX and above so they can complete their education, and to reduce the incidence of drop-out at the transition from the elementary to the secondary stage. Awards are for studies in India only, and they run from the pre-matric stage through post-matriculation and beyond that till post-graduation. The floor sits at class IX for a reason the guidelines state in their own terms: the self-perceived gender identity of transgender persons up to the age of class 8 remains ambiguous to a large extent, and so a child's transgender identity may not be established that early.

Who runs it

Provider

At a glance

Key details

Calendar

Important dates

This scholarship runs to no published annual calendar. The guidelines commit the Department to announcing the scheme well in time by advertising in leading language newspapers and local or vernacular dailies, by other suitable publicity media, and on the Ministry's own website, with applications due within the last date prescribed (SMILE guidelines). That date is set per announcement rather than fixed to a month, so the portal and the Ministry's website are where it appears first.

Which rulebook is in force matters here too. The Department's scheme page lists two documents under SMILE: the guidelines with effect from 12th February 2022, which are the ones this page reads, and a second revision with effect from 10.06.2025 that covers the sub-scheme for persons engaged in the act of begging, not the transgender one (Department of Social Justice and Empowerment).

The scheme's own dates are firmer. SMILE was launched on 12 February 2022 by the Union Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment, with Rs 365 crore allocated to it across 2021-22 to 2025-26 (Press Information Bureau, 12 February 2022). That window has now been crossed. A third party assessment was carried out by the National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj, Hyderabad, during September and October 2025, and its major findings and recommendations were incorporated into revised scheme guidelines for continuation of the scheme during the 16th Finance Commission cycle from 2026-27 to 2030-31 (Press Information Bureau, 17 August 2026). The scheme is running, and a page that stops it at 2025-26 is quoting a window that has been superseded.

Who can apply

Eligibility criteria

A transgender certificate issued through the National Portal for Transgender Persons of the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment is the first condition, and the scholarships are open to nationals of India only (SMILE guidelines). The certificate and identity card issued through that portal are what the government treats as proof across its transgender schemes, which is why the Ministry describes the portal as the single digital gateway for issuing them (Press Information Bureau backgrounder).

The condition that stops the most people is the one about other scholarships. A candidate receiving any other central or state government funded scholarship is not eligible, and nothing is paid under this scheme once another scholarship or stipend has been accepted. The guidelines carve out a narrow exception: free lodging, and grants or ad hoc monetary help from a state government or any other source towards books, equipment or the expenses of board and lodging, may be held alongside the award. A second regular scholarship may not.

A part time enrolment does not qualify. The candidate has to be studying regular and full time, and the school has to be a government school or else hold recognition from the government or from a secondary education board at central or state level. Format alone shuts nobody out: students pursuing correspondence courses are eligible, and the term takes in distance and continuing education that the Ministry of Education or a state government recognises. All graduate and post-graduate degree and diploma courses recognised by UGC or AICTE are covered, and so are technical and vocational courses at class XI and XII level in Industrial Training Institutes and Industrial Training Centres affiliated to the National Council for Vocational Training, polytechnics included.

The rule that ends a claim is written around stages rather than years. Eligibility stops where a candidate has already passed one stage of education, or is taking that stage again in another subject; the guidelines' own illustration is a B.Com begun after a B.A. in other subjects.

Who cannot apply

Exclusions

Certificate courses fall outside the scheme, and so does any course of less than one year's duration (SMILE guidelines). Both bars sit in the clause that otherwise opens the scholarship to technical and vocational study, which is worth knowing before assuming the sub-scheme has nothing for a short trade course: the skill development component funds short term courses set against National Occupational Standards, while the scholarship cannot.

Repeating a class is the other bar. Any given class draws this scholarship for one year and no more, so a student who has to sit that class again gets nothing for it a second or subsequent year, and the claim comes back only on promotion.

Continuation

Renewal conditions

Renewal skips the competition entirely. There is no merit list generation for renewal cases at all: obtaining qualifying marks in the previous year's examinations and having the application verified by all the authorities is enough for the money to continue (SMILE guidelines). What keeps an award running once it has been made is good conduct and regularity in attendance.

A certificate of previous academic score not less than qualifying marks, attested by the institute, is the single document a renewal turns on. Payment then resumes at the month after the last one the previous year's scholarship covered, so a continuing student is not pushed back to the start of the financial year.

What you get

Award & benefits

A sum of Rs 13,500 is given as post-matric or pre-matric scholarship to eligible transgender students, in bulk once every academic year (SMILE guidelines). The same guidelines cost the component at 22,500 scholarships for Rs 3,037.5 lakh over 5 years, which is the number of awards the design was sized for rather than the number issued in any given year.

The stretch that payment covers is fixed by rule. It opens on 1 April, or in the month of admission where admission came later, and it closes with the month in which that year's examinations are completed, holidays inside the stretch counted in. Where the scholar secures admission after the 20th of a month, the count begins the month after instead.

Money reaches the student directly, with no state government in the middle. The Ministry implements the scholarship itself and remits the amount to beneficiaries through Direct Benefit Transfer, and applicants are encouraged to hold an Aadhaar linked bank account so payment can run over the Aadhaar Payment Bridge. That account has to carry the same name as the transgender certificate issued through the National Portal, which is the condition a student whose bank records still show a former name has to settle before the money can land.

Funding for the transgender sub-scheme is accounted separately from the beggary one. Allocation to Comprehensive Rehabilitation for Welfare of Transgender Persons ran as follows.

• A sum of ₹13,500/- shall be given as post-matric / pre-matric scholarships to eligible transgender students once every year.

What to prepare

Documents required

The document list in the scheme record is the fresh application list; a renewal turns on a single certificate instead of the whole set (SMILE guidelines). The item applicants most often have to chase is the institute verification form, and the portal's own scholarship user manual names it the bonafide certificate at Annexure I, which the student downloads from the portal itself and then has verified by the school or institute authority (National Portal for Transgender Persons, scholarship user manual). The same manual is blunt about the order of operations at the upload step: without the transgender certificate and identity card already generated, that part of the form cannot be completed.

Checking those certificates is the institution's job, and the scheme forbids it charging for the work. Responsibility for verifying the credibility of what a candidate furnishes rests with the institution, expressly to eliminate the possibility of students availing the scholarship on fake certificates, and the university or institute will not charge any fee for verification. A student asked to pay for that attestation is being charged for something the scheme says costs nothing.

Step by step

How to apply

Applications for this scholarship go through the National Portal for Transgender Persons, on a login the applicant already holds. It is availed by registering or applying on the portal through the login ID and password used to issue the transgender certificate and identity card, and applying online on the website is mandatory for interested transgender students (SMILE guidelines). No paper route is provided.

Inside the portal, scholarship is chosen from the dashboard and the applicant picks the category matching their education level, which the user manual gives as 9th and 10th, 11th and 12th, UG and diploma, or PG. The portal then issues an application number and opens the master form, filled in sequence for profile, education, course details, bank details, document upload and declaration (National Portal for Transgender Persons, scholarship user manual).

Applications have to reach the online system within the last date prescribed for receipt of applications, with every requisite document uploaded in the prescribed format: photograph, proof of age, transgender identity certificate and the last academic qualification certificate among them (SMILE guidelines).

Tracking the Application After Submission

The same login carries the status. The guidelines say students can follow up or monitor the status of their application after submission, and the user manual puts it in operating terms: after submitting, the student can see the status of the application and also track it using their login credentials (National Portal for Transgender Persons, scholarship user manual). The result is published rather than sent privately. The list of selected candidates is displayed on the portal at a specified date, considering the number of slots available for the scholarship (SMILE guidelines).

How winners are picked

Selection process

Marks decide, because slots are capped. All eligible candidates identifying as transgender persons are considered, but the number of scholarships available in a year is fixed and limited, so applications are ranked by total marks achieved in the previous academic year as reflected in the mark sheet, and the final selection is made by the online system (SMILE guidelines).

Equal merit is broken by age in fresh cases: preference is generated from the date of birth of the applicant, the senior preferred, and subject to the availability of slots. A second preference runs across the whole field, because students applying for post-matric are given preference over pre-matric applicants, which leaves a class IX or X applicant competing for what remains once class XI, XII and higher applicants have been placed.

Missing out in one year does not end the claim. Where applicants outnumber the slots available, those who did not receive the scholarship for the academic year they applied for are prioritised for the successive academic year in the next financial cycle, on the strength of the application form and mark sheet already submitted.

Fine print

Terms & conditions

Continuation depends on conduct, and the report that ends it comes from the institution. Where the head of the institution or school states that a student has, through their own default, stopped making satisfactory progress or been guilty of misconduct, the authority that sanctioned the award can cancel it, stop it, or hold back the rest for whatever period it judges fit. Taking part in strikes, and irregular attendance without the permission of the authorities concerned, are the misconduct the guidelines put on record (SMILE guidelines). Violating school discipline, or any of the award's other terms, carries the same exposure to suspension or cancellation.

Obtaining the award on a false statement carries a heavier penalty than simply losing it. The scholarship is cancelled forthwith, the amount already paid is recovered by the Ministry along with penal interest as per applicable rules, and the student is then blacklisted, debarred for future scholarship in any scheme forever. A student who drops the course part way through the year is liable to refund what the scheme has paid.

None of it is fixed permanently. The Government of India may change these regulations whenever it chooses, and the scheme is monitored at regular intervals by the Ministry including its Project Monitoring Unit, with evaluation done through a third party organisation as deemed necessary.

Get help

Contact

The National Portal for Transgender Persons carries the scheme's helpline, funded under the e-services component alongside call centres for transgender persons (SMILE guidelines). For scholarship queries specifically, the portal's user manual publishes a phone line on 011-23386981 and an email address at tgcertification2020@gmail.com, and directs applicants to the portal itself for the eligibility criteria, the requisite documents and the process of application (National Portal for Transgender Persons, scholarship user manual).

Volume on the general line is handled by the Department's National Institute of Social Defence, which dealt with more than 1200 queries received through calls and emails on the general helpline of the National Portal for Transgender Persons during 2023-24 (Annual Report 2023-24, Department of Social Justice and Empowerment).

For anything about an individual application, the institution comes first, because verification, attestation of the mark sheet and the institute verification form all sit there. The sanctioning authority is the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, which implements the scholarship and releases the money.

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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