Delhi DoE notifies revised income limit for EWS admissions in private schools

NEW DELHI: The Directorate of Education, Delhi has notified the revised income limit for EWS admissions in private schools, from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 2.5 lakh. Under the Right To Education (RTE) Act, 25 per cent seats in private unaided schools are reserved for students belonging to the Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) category.

In an official gazette, the DoE notified that the previous sub-clause of the Delhi School Education Order has been amended and substituted with “means a child whose parents have total annual income of less than two lakh and fifty thousand rupees from all sources and who have been staying in Delhi."

In 2004, the Delhi EWS income limit was Rs 48,000 in case of girl child and Rs 60,000 in case of boy child. In 2005-06, the threshold income was revised to Rs 1 lakh for both male and female students, which has not been revised since then, until this notification.

On March 4, 2024, the Delhi High Court stayed the judgment of a single-judge bench ordering that the income limit for eligibility under the weaker section category be raised from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 5 lakhs. As a result, the income limit for eligibility under the EWS category was temporarily set at Rs 2.5 lakh, instead of Rs 5 lakhs until further notice. The court’s order to raise the limit to Rs 5 lakh came in December last year.

Following a judgment by the high court in 2013, the rule regarding "children belonging to weaker sections" was changed. Specifically, the phrase "for the last three years" was removed from the Delhi School Education (Free Seats for students from Economically Weaker Sections and Disadvantaged Groups) Order, 2011.