One-time registration, Aadhaar must to apply on National Scholarship Portal from 2024-25 session

NEW DELHI: The Ministry of Education has mandated Aadhaar and a newly added One Time Registration (OTR) feature for applying on the National Scholarship Portal (NSP) starting from the year 2024-25. The Centre has also directed nodal officers to guide students and parents on how to apply for the National Means-cum-merit Scholarships (NMMSS) afresh and to use the another new feature of Grievance Redressal Mechanism (GRM) on the portal.

During a national-level workshop organised by the Department of School Education and Literacy (DoSEL), the ministry officials explained that the OTR is a unique 14-digit number issued based on the Aadhaar/Enrolment ID (EID) and is applicable for the entire academic career of the student. It will be required for students to apply for the scholarship on the NSP. The OTR module will be available to students across the year.

OTR

On successful completion of the registration by the candidates on NSP, an OTR ID will be issued which will remain valid for the entire academic life-cycle of the student, the department said. On submission of an application, the system will generate an application ID against the OTR ID. The portal will ensure that not more than one application ID remains active against an OTR ID at any given point in time. Upon registering on NSP, the students will get an OTR and password with which they can apply for or withdraw from a scheme without getting multiple NSP IDs. The student’s whole history of scholarships can be tracked with the help of the OTR.

As the NSP hosts several state-level scholarship schemes also, the state and UT nodal officers (SNOs) were asked to provide orientation to the parents, or teachers and students on the procedure for registering through OTR for fresh and renewal cases. “The SNOs were also asked to educate parents on registering the correct name and spelling of the child and their parent’s name and details in the school records as well as in the Aadhaar registry to avoid mismatch at a later stage on NSP,” the school department added.

Aadhaar, grievance redressal

Speaking about the features of the Aadhaar payment bridge introduced last year, the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) Mission director Devendra Kumar informed the officers that the payment module in the NSP-NIC is activated after a sanity check. Under the scholarship schemes, the school education department disburses scholarships directly through DBT into the accounts of the beneficiaries. The government official also sought feedback and suggestions on the grievance redressal system from the states and UTs.

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Bio-authentication

Another facility added to the NSP is application-based bio-authentication for both students and the nodal officers. Emphasizing on the use of bio-authentication instead of a demographic one, UIDAI director Sanjeev Kumar informed that the scholarship amount is disbursed only to those accounts which are seeded by Aadhaar at the time of registration and that the beneficiary can check his or her Aadhaar seeding status from the NPCI and PFMS portals.

NMMSS eligibility, scholarship amount, portal

NMMSS scholarships are awarded to meritorious EWS students of Class 8 to encourage them to continue their education. MoE awards one lakh fresh scholarships to selected students from Class 9 every year and renews scholarships of those in classes 10, 11 and 12 of the state government, government-aided and local body schools. The amount of the scholarship is Rs 12, 000 per annum.

Students whose family income from all sources is not more than Rs 3,50,000 per annum are eligible to avail the scholarships. They must have obtained a minimum of 55% marks or equivalent grade (relaxable by 5% for SC, ST students) in the Class 7 examination to appear in the selection test for the award of a scholarship conducted by the states, UTs every year.

As the students register on NSP, the scholarship amount is transferred directly into the bank accounts of selected students via electronic transfer through the Public Financial Management System (PFMS) by DBT.