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The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment told the Lok Sabha that the PM-YASASVI umbrella scheme comprises four components — the Pre-Matric Scholarship Scheme for OBCs and others, the Post-Matric Scholarship Scheme for OBCs and others, Top Class Education in Schools, and Top Class Education in Colleges.
Maharashtra was onboarded on the National Scholarship Portal for both the Pre-Matric and Post-Matric OBC schemes from Academic Year 2025-26.
Central releases to Maharashtra under the Pre-Matric Scholarship Scheme rose from Rs 555.74 lakh in 2024-25 to Rs 1,940 lakh in 2025-26; no proposal was received in 2023-24, so no funds were released.
No Central Assistance was released under the Post-Matric Scheme in the last three years — due to non-receipt of proposals in 2023-24, unutilised balance in the State's Single Nodal Agency account in 2024-25, and a technical disbursal issue in 2025-26.
Under Top Class Education in Colleges, releases rose from Rs 1,000.39 lakh in 2023-24 to Rs 2,712.14 lakh in 2024-25 and Rs 2,857.95 lakh in 2025-26; scholarship beneficiaries include students at NIFT Bengaluru and IIM Raipur, one of whom received Rs 10.27 lakh in April 2026.
The reply is unusually candid about why central scholarship funds fail to reach students, and the reasons are procedural rather than budgetary. Four are named: incomplete proposals submitted by States and UTs; non-submission of Utilisation Certificates against funds already released, which blocks the next release; non-onboarding of some States on the SNA-SPARSH platform; and non-seeding of beneficiary bank accounts with Aadhaar, which breaks Direct Benefit Transfer. The Single Nodal Agency model was introduced to fix a specific problem — money released by the Centre sitting idle in multiple State-level accounts, earning interest and obscuring how much had actually been spent. Under the SNA system, each Centrally Sponsored Scheme in a State routes through one designated bank account, and SNA-SPARSH extends this to real-time, utilisation-based tracking, so the Centre can see the balance before releasing more. Maharashtra's Post-Matric case illustrates both the discipline and its cost: no money was released in 2024-25 precisely because an unutilised balance was sitting in the SNA account. The system worked as designed, and students still received nothing.
Simple Analogy: The SNA account is a single tap the Centre can see through. It stops money pooling unseen — but it also means a blockage anywhere in the pipe stops the flow entirely.
Support school education of students from OBC, Economically Backward Class and Denotified, Nomadic and Semi-Nomadic Tribe families
Key: Centre releases funds to States/UTs on approved notional allocation; States handle selection, verification and disbursement through the National Scholarship Portal
Support post-matriculation and post-secondary education for OBC, EBC and DNT students
Key: Same Centre-State division of responsibility; release is contingent on proposals, Utilisation Certificates and SNA account position
Enable meritorious OBC, EBC and DNT students to study in high-quality schools
Key: Applications in Maharashtra rose sharply from 2,192 fresh applications in 2024-25 to 8,402 in 2025-26, with 4,533 finally verified
Fund OBC, EBC and DNT students admitted to premier higher education institutions
Key: The component that funds students at institutions such as NIFT and the IIMs — the Ministry cited a beneficiary at IIM Raipur who received Rs 10.27 lakh in April 2026 against a programme fee of about Rs 20 lakh, and a student at NIFT Bengaluru supported since 2024
Support Denotified, Nomadic and Semi-Nomadic Tribes through coaching, health insurance, livelihood support and housing
Key: The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment's companion scheme for DNT communities, who are also a target group under PM-YASASVI
Investigates and monitors safeguards for socially and educationally backward classes and advises on their inclusion in the Central List
The single digital platform through which scholarship applications are received, Aadhaar-verified, institution-verified and processed for Direct Benefit Transfer
The single State-level bank account through which Centrally Sponsored Scheme funds flow, with SNA-SPARSH providing real-time, utilisation-based tracking; States/UTs have been mandated to onboard it
Implements PM-YASASVI and the wider set of schemes for Scheduled Castes, Other Backward Classes, Denotified Tribes, senior citizens, persons with disabilities and victims of substance abuse
Empowers the President to appoint a Commission to investigate the conditions of socially and educationally backward classes — the provision under which the Kaka Kalelkar Commission (1953) and the Mandal Commission (1979) were appointed
Inserted by the 102nd Constitutional Amendment Act, 2018 to give the National Commission for Backward Classes constitutional status, along with its structure, duties and powers
Also inserted by the 102nd Amendment; empowers the President, in consultation with the Governor, to specify socially and educationally backward classes for a State
Article 15(4) permits special provision for the advancement of socially and educationally backward classes, and Article 46 directs the State to promote with special care the educational and economic interests of the weaker sections — the basis for scholarship schemes of this kind
Aadhaar seeding of bank accounts is named as one of the four causes of delay — the point at which the DBT architecture fails in practice rather than in design
The Centre funds and the State selects, verifies and disburses; when a State does not submit a proposal, as Maharashtra did not in 2023-24, no money moves at all regardless of central allocation
DNT communities — those 'notified' as criminal tribes under colonial law and denotified after independence — are a distinct target group alongside OBC and EBC students, and are covered separately by the SEED scheme
Across every component the verified number is roughly half the applications received — 575 of 1,079 pre-matric applications, 4,533 of 8,402 Top Class school applications — which points to verification capacity, not applicant demand, as the constraint
GS Paper 2 > Governance > Welfare Schemes; Social Justice > Mechanisms for Weaker Sections
General Awareness > Government Schemes and Polity
Backward classes institutions and scholarship schemes recur in Prelims polity and GS2 Mains
The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment's umbrella scholarship scheme for OBC, EBC and DNT students, comprising Pre-Matric, Post-Matric and two Top Class Education components
Denotified, Nomadic and Semi-Nomadic Tribes — communities notified as criminal tribes under colonial law and denotified after independence, a distinct beneficiary category under PM-YASASVI and the SEED scheme
The Single Nodal Agency platform providing real-time, utilisation-based tracking of Centrally Sponsored Scheme funds in State accounts
The certificate a State must furnish for funds already released before the next instalment can be released — a named cause of scholarship disbursal delay