SHRESHTA Scheme

Scheme for Residential Education for Students in Targeted Areas

Objective: to provide quality education and opportunities for even the poorest Scheduled Caste students.

Eligibility: Students studying in Class 8 or Class 10 whose parental annual income is up to Rs. 2.5 Lakh per annum, at free of cost from Class 9th to Class 12th

Scheme: A specified number of meritorious SC students (Approx 3000) in States / UTs are selected through a transparent mechanism of a National Entrance Test for SHRESHTA (NETS), conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA).

Selected students are admitted in the Best Private Residential Schools, affiliated by CBSE, in classes 9th and 11th for completion of education till 12th standard.

Thereafter, the students may be connected to Post Matric Scholarship Scheme or Top - Class Education Scheme of the Ministry to continue their further studies with adequate financial aid from the Government of India.

School selection: The Ministry has selected the best performing private residential schools affiliated with the CBSE, based on certain parameters such as

  1. Schools is in existence for at least for last 5 years,
  2. Boards results of the schools were more than 75% in Class 10 and 12 for the last 3 years, and
  3. The Schools have adequate infrastructure for admitting additional at SC students in classes 9th and 11th.

Entire cost of school fee and hostel fee including food charges shall be borne by the Government of India.

The Students under the Scheme may select any school across the country for their academics.

Payment of full year fee including hostel fee in one go is made through Anudaan portal.

A Bridge Course for a period of 3 months, for the students, joining the CBSE based schools from State Schools, Rural Areas or from Regional language Schools, to adapt in the new environment of the selected schools.

The bridge course should be conducted outside - the - school - hours after identifying the individual academic requirements, to ensure that SC students of the Scheme, can catch up with the rest of the students in the class.

The Ministry shall pay additional cost of 10 % of the annual charge for the Bridge Course.

The scholarships for the students will cover the School Fee (including tuition fee ) and Hostel Fee ( including mess charges ) subject to a maximum limits as given below:

  1. Class 9 - Rs. 1,00,000
  2. Class 10 - Rs. 1,10,000
  3. Class 11 - Rs. 1,25,000
  4. Class 12 - Rs. 1,35,000

The scholarships will be released in one installment directly to the schools in the first quarter itself of each financial year. The progress of the students will be monitored by the Ministry from time to time. The scheme will be considered to be in DBT mode.