What happened: DBT Tribal Portal monitoring and scholarship disbursal through direct transfers

The Ministry of Tribal Affairs reported to the Rajya Sabha that the Ministry is already leveraging the DBT Tribal Portal for monitoring and generating Management Information System (MIS) reports for pre-matric and post-matric scholarship schemes for ST students. States/UTs can also upload queries, documents, and utilization certificates, and the Ministry described faster processing and reduced grievances as outcomes.

For disbursal, the Ministry stated that scholarship payment under the Centrally Sponsored Pre-Matric and Post-Matric Scholarship Schemes is carried out by the concerned State/UT through the State/UT portal or the National Scholarship Portal (NSP). For release of the central share (to avoid parking of funds with States), the Ministry adopted the SNA SPARSH model under the pre-matric and post-matric schemes, described as a just-in-time disbursement approach using DBT.

Background and earlier position: scholarship schemes implemented through States/UTs, with monitoring needing standardized data

The Ministry clarified that the Pre-Matric Scholarship Scheme and Post-Matric Scholarship Scheme are Centrally Sponsored Schemes implemented through States/UTs. For these schemes, scholarship disbursement is done by the concerned State/UT using either a State/UT portal or the NSP portal. The Ministry stated that beneficiary counts for the last three financial years FY 2023-24 to FY 2025-26 are provided in Annexure-I (beneficiary numbers reported by States/UTs on the DBT Tribal Portal).

For central sector scholarships implemented directly by the Ministry, the Ministry described a digital delivery mechanism using the National Scholarship Portal (NSP), the Ministry’s scholarship portal, and the Public Financial Management System (PFMS) to facilitate Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT).

Related current affairs