A question in the Lok Sabha asked the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment about post-matric scholarships for Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe and OBC students in 2025-26: how many applications had been received, how many payments made and how many pending; how many cases showed as “Payment Failed” or “Under Process” on the National Scholarship Portal because of Aadhaar errors, state by state; whether coordination problems between the portal and state portals, including Rajasthan’s, had been found; what had been done; and when the rest of the central share would be released.
Three schemes, three kinds of answer
For the scheme for Scheduled Caste students, which the ministry runs through the states, the central share goes straight into each student’s Aadhaar-seeded bank account, but only after the state has paid its share and sent that paid data to the portal. The answer’s table gives, for the academic year 2025-26 as on 19 March 2026, 16,02,891 students in 11 states and Rs 2,039.13 crore of central share released to them.
For the scheme for Scheduled Tribe students, the Ministry of Tribal Affairs said the states handle applications, verification and payment, and that “the information of the number of applications and pending payments is not maintained” by it.
For the scheme for OBC, EBC and DNT students, the answer says states report the number of students only in the following year’s proposal. It gives instead the money paid to 30 states and union territories in the financial year 2025-26, as on 19 March 2026. 12 of them had received nothing under either head by then, among them Chhattisgarh, Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Maharashtra, Punjab and Rajasthan.
What the answer does not give
No count of applications received and no count of payments pending, for any of the three schemes. Asked for cases shown as “Payment Failed” or “Under Process” because of Aadhaar verification or seeding errors, the answer gives one narrower category: cases shown as “Payment Failed” because the “Aadhaar number de-seeded”. There are 2: Chhattisgarh (1) and Gujarat (1). It gives no “Under Process” count. Asked for a timeline for the rest of the central share, it says the share is released “as and when” the states’ paid data is received, and gives no date.
Rajasthan, which the question named, has no row in the table for Scheduled Caste students, and in the table for OBC, EBC and DNT students it shows Rs 0.00 crore under both heads. The answer says the technical issues of the states “including the State of Rajasthan are resolved timely”. It does not say why no central share is listed for Rajasthan.
18 states and UTs with no row
In August, answering Lok Sabha Unstarred Question 3852, the ministry gave the central share released for the same scheme state by state for the financial year 2025-26: Rs 6,186.95 crore across 30 states and union territories. 18 of them, with Rs 1,412.79 crore between them, have no row in the March table. The largest are Uttar Pradesh (Rs 617.64 crore), Rajasthan (Rs 220.73 crore) and Telangana (Rs 213.79 crore).
The two tables count different years. The March table is for the academic year 2025-26, as on 19 March 2026. The August table is for the financial year, which runs to 31 March and can include payments for an earlier academic year. Neither answer says which academic year the August amounts paid for, so the gap is a question the answers leave open, not an error. For Rajasthan, the August answer lists Rs 220.73 crore in the financial year 2025-26.
Source: Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, answer to Lok Sabha Unstarred Question 5091, 24 March 2026, Annexure I (National Scholarship Portal).
Rs 1,811 to Rs 29,133 a student
Dividing each state’s central share by its students gives the average released per student so far: from Rs 1,811 in West Bengal to Rs 29,133 in Maharashtra, about 16 times as much. The figures are as on 19 March 2026. The answer does not say whether they are each student’s full scholarship for the year, or why the averages differ.
Adds up
The table for Scheduled Caste students adds up exactly to its printed 16,02,891 students; its money adds up to Rs 2,039.14 crore against a printed Rs 2,039.13 crore, a rounding difference. In the table for OBC, EBC and DNT students, the Single Nodal Agency column adds up exactly, to Rs 576.63 crore. The Effective Mother Section column does not: its rows make Rs 309.82 crore and the printed total is Rs 309.76 crore. The difference, Rs 0.06 crore, is exactly Andhra Pradesh’s entry of Rs 0.06 crore, and is more than rounding of the column’s 8 non-zero entries could make. In the August answer the 2023-24 column adds up to Rs 5,475.37 crore against a printed Rs 5,475.43 crore; the 2024-25 and 2025-26 columns match their totals.
Got it right
The answer gives state figures with a date and a source, the National Scholarship Portal, and across all states only 2 payments are shown as failed because an Aadhaar number was de-seeded. Since 2021-22 the central share for Scheduled Caste students has gone straight into students’ bank accounts. The August answer shows it rising from Rs 5,475.43 crore in 2023-24 to Rs 6,186.95 crore in 2025-26. Tamil Nadu has the most students in the March table, 7,35,860, and the most central share released, Rs 763.61 crore.
Every state and union territory
Post-matric scholarship for Scheduled Caste students. A dash means the state has no row in the March table.
| State / UT | Students, AY 2025-26 | Central share, AY 2025-26 (Rs crore) | Average a student (Rs) | Central share, FY 2025-26 (Rs crore, August answer) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maharashtra | 1,42,203 | 414.28 | 29,133 | 1,095.8 |
| Tamil Nadu | 7,35,860 | 763.61 | 10,377 | 1,034.94 |
| Uttar Pradesh | – | – | – | 617.64 |
| Punjab | 41,428 | 55.85 | 13,481 | 525.61 |
| Andhra Pradesh | 2,53,573 | 345.84 | 13,639 | 513.52 |
| Madhya Pradesh | 69,429 | 55.45 | 7,987 | 493.42 |
| Karnataka | 2,34,602 | 293.14 | 12,495 | 334.22 |
| Odisha | 1,745 | 1.32 | 7,564 | 311.99 |
| Gujarat | 37,815 | 68.55 | 18,128 | 282.54 |
| Rajasthan | – | – | – | 220.73 |
| Telangana | – | – | – | 213.79 |
| Haryana | – | – | – | 127.91 |
| Kerala | 17,133 | 8.80 | 5,136 | 72.6 |
| West Bengal | 28,666 | 5.19 | 1,811 | 55.93 |
| Tripura | – | – | – | 54.22 |
| Chhattisgarh | 40,437 | 27.11 | 6,704 | 53.6 |
| Bihar | – | – | – | 45.18 |
| Jharkhand | – | – | – | 32.96 |
| Delhi | – | – | – | 29.74 |
| Uttarakhand | – | – | – | 20.14 |
| Assam | – | – | – | 18.13 |
| Himachal Pradesh | – | – | – | 18 |
| Manipur | – | – | – | 4.36 |
| Jammu and Kashmir | – | – | – | 4.19 |
| Chandigarh | – | – | – | 2.87 |
| Puducherry | – | – | – | 2.24 |
| Sikkim | – | – | – | 0.54 |
| Meghalaya | – | – | – | 0.14 |
| Goa | – | – | – | 0.0091 |
| Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu | – | – | – | 0 |
| Printed totals | 16,02,891 | 2,039.13 | 12,722 | 6,186.95 |
Post-matric scholarship for OBC, EBC and DNT students: payments to states and UTs, financial year 2025-26, as on 19 March 2026.
| State / UT | Effective Mother Section (Rs crore) | Single Nodal Agency (Rs crore) |
|---|---|---|
| Andhra Pradesh | 0.06 | 0.00 |
| Bihar | 0.00 | 138.53 |
| Chhattisgarh | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Goa | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Gujarat | 0.00 | 52.70 |
| Haryana | 0.00 | 9.45 |
| Himachal Pradesh | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Jammu and Kashmir | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Jharkhand | 0.00 | 4.05 |
| Karnataka | 92.77 | 0.00 |
| Kerala | 23.13 | 0.00 |
| Madhya Pradesh | 79.16 | 0.00 |
| Maharashtra | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Odisha | 0.00 | 25.00 |
| Punjab | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Rajasthan | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Tamil Nadu | 48.74 | 58.00 |
| Telangana | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Uttar Pradesh | 0.00 | 270.00 |
| Uttarakhand | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| West Bengal | 0.00 | 15.96 |
| Andaman and Nicobar Islands | 0.00 | 0.28 |
| Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu | 0.00 | 0.50 |
| Chandigarh | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Delhi | 0.00 | 1.72 |
| Puducherry | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Assam | 24.37 | 0.00 |
| Manipur | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Sikkim | 1.18 | 0.44 |
| Tripura | 40.41 | 0.00 |
| Printed total | 309.76 | 576.63 |
How we did this
- Source: the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment’s answer to Lok Sabha Unstarred Question 5091, answered on 24 March 2026, Annexures I to III (National Scholarship Portal, as on 19 March 2026), read with its answer to Unstarred Question 3852, answered on 11 August 2026, Annexure II.
- Both answers’ Word files were parsed and checked against their scanned PDFs. Every column was summed against its printed total; the differences are set out under Adds up.
- The average a student is the central share released divided by the students paid, as on 19 March 2026, rounded to the rupee. The March and August tables count different years and are not subtracted from each other.
- Download the data: post-matric-scholarship-sc-by-state-2025-26.csv and post-matric-scholarship-obc-by-state-fy2025-26.csv. Our method and labels are on the Data Audit method page.
Questions
Why is a state missing from the March table?
For the scheme for Scheduled Caste students, the answer says the central share is released into each student's Aadhaar-seeded bank account only after the state or union territory has paid its share and sent that paid data to the National Scholarship Portal. The answer does not say why any particular state is missing.
Can the March table and the August table be compared?
Not directly. The March answer counts the academic year 2025-26, as on 19 March 2026. The August answer counts the financial year 2025-26, which ends on 31 March and can include payments for an earlier academic year. Neither says which academic year the August amounts paid for, so we set them side by side and do not subtract one from the other.
What are the 'Effective Mother Section' and 'Single Nodal Agency' columns?
The answer gives the payments to states for the scheme for OBC, EBC and DNT students under these two heads and does not define them, so we report them as printed. A later answer, Lok Sabha Unstarred Question 2559 of 4 August 2026, says delays under that scheme occur partly because certain states and union territories are not on the SNA-SPARSH platform.
Where does the data come from?
From the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment's answers to Lok Sabha Unstarred Question 5091, answered on 24 March 2026 (Annexures I to III, National Scholarship Portal data as on 19 March 2026), and Unstarred Question 3852, answered on 11 August 2026 (Annexure II).
Corrections
No corrections so far. If any figure here is wrong, send the correcting document to editor@oquilia.com and we will correct it and record the change on this page.