Matribhumi Samachar English
A national-level workshop was organized by the Department of School Education & Literacy (DoSEL), Ministry of Education, with the State Nodal Officers of the National Means-cum-Merit Scholarship Scheme (NMMSS) on 28th August 2024 in New Delhi. The workshop was presided over by Ms. A. Srija, Economic Adviser, DoSEL and attended by State Education Officers/State Nodal Officers (NMMSS) of States/UTs in hybrid mode. Officers from the DBT Mission, NIC-National Scholarship Portal (NSP) and UIDAI also attended the workshop.
The workshop deliberated on areas related to the status of registration of fresh and renewal candidates on the NSP and also on the new feature of the One Time Registration (OTR) module added to the NSP from the year 2024-25. The OTR Module will be available to students across the year. 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. The OTR is required to apply for the scholarship on the National Scholarship Portal. On successful completion of OTR, an OTR ID will be issued which will remain valid for the entire academic lifecycle of the student. 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. The students, on registering on NSP, will get an OTR and password with which they can apply for any scheme or withdraw from the scheme without getting multiple NSP IDs. The student’s whole history of scholarships/education can be tracked by the OTR.
During the workshop, Ms. A. Srija spoke about the importance of timely scholarship payments to children of EWS selected on merit and the need for prompt verification of applications by state-level officers on the NSP. As the NSP hosts several State Scholarship Schemes also, the State/UT Nodal Officers (SNOs) were urged to provide orientation to the parents/teachers and students on the procedure for registering on the NSP 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. Further, Aadhaar has become mandatory from the Academic Year 2024-25.
Shri Devendra Kumar, Director (DBT Mission), spoke about the features of the Aadhaar payment bridge introduced in the NSP since the project year 2023-24. The payment module in the NSP-NIC is activated after the sanity check is conducted. Under the NMMSS, DoSEL functions as an agency and disburses scholarships directly through DBT into the accounts of the beneficiaries. He also informed that the NSP has now introduced a Grievance Redressal Mechanism (GRM) and asked the State Nodal Officers to use the facility of grievance redressal. He sought State/UTs’ feedback and suggestions for improvement of the GRM. Ms.PriyaGopal, Scientist-E, NIC-NSP, made a presentation on the new developments in the portal during the year 2024-25 and the feature of OTR on NSP, which was followed by detailed interaction between SNOs and officers from the Ministry of Education, DBT, and NIC-NSP.
Shri SanjeevYadav, Director (UIDAI), emphasized the use of bio-authentication instead of demographic authentication, which is a more accurate mode of authentication. He provided details on the application-based bio face authentication feature for students as well as Nodal Officers (SNO/INO/DNO) of NMMSS. It was 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/her Aadhaar seeding status from the NPCI and PFMS portals. During the discussion, he clarified doubts of the SNOs regarding Aadhaar seeding in NMMSS.
Under the ‘National Means-cum-Merit Scholarship Scheme’ scholarships are awarded to meritorious students of EWS to arrest their dropout at class VIII and encourage them to continue their education up to the secondary stage. One lakh fresh scholarships are awarded to selected students from class IX every year and their continuation/renewal in classes X, XI & XII of the State Government, Government-aided and local body schools. The amount of the scholarship is Rs. 12000 per annum.
The National Means-cum-Merit Scholarship Scheme (NMMSS) is boarded on the National Scholarship Portal (NSP) – a one-stop platform for scholarship schemes given to meritorious students of the EWS category. The amount is disbursed directly into the bank accounts of selected students by electronic transfer through the Public Financial Management System (PFMS) by Direct Benefit Transfer under this Central Sector Scheme.
Students whose family income from all sources is not more than Rs. 3,50,000 per annum are eligible to avail the scholarships. The students must have a minimum of 55% marks or equivalent grade in the Class VII examination to appear in the selection test for the award of a scholarship (relaxable by 5% for SC/ST students). The exams are conducted by States/UTs every year for the selection of the students as fresh candidates.
