UP Increases Maintenance Allowance for Students

• 07 Aug 2025

Why in News?

Under the Pre-Matric Scholarship Scheme, the Uttar Pradesh (UP) Government has doubled the maintenance allowance for disabled students, increasing it from ₹2,000 to ₹4,000 per month.

• An increase in the maintenance allowance will benefit 2,650 disabled students enrolled in 28 residential schools across the state.
• According to the data of the UP government, over 50 lakh students benefit from the state’s scholarship and fee reimbursement programs every year, including around 14-15 lakh from the Scheduled Castes.

Key Points

• Excluding Criteria: The government has made students above 40 years of age ineligible for scholarships, whereas previously, there was no maximum age limit for applicants.
  • Students passing their high school exams from state boards outside UP will no longer be eligible for scholarships, but those from central boards like CBSE and ICSE will still receive them.
  • The amended scheme will also exclude students of UP campuses run by universities domiciled outside the state from receiving scholarships.
• Mandatory: DigiLocker registration will now be mandatory for scholarship applicants, enabling automatic Aadhaar-based data verification and helping prevent fraud.
• Increased Amount for SC Students: For Scheduled Caste (SC) students, the yearly scholarship amount will be increased by Rs 500, taking the total to Rs 3,500 per annum.
  • Under the Pre-Matric Scholarship Scheme, the income limit restriction has been removed for children of families engaged in unhygienic professions such as manual scavenging and working with raw leather, allowing them to avail the benefits of the scholarship scheme.

Note:  As per the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (RPwD) Act, 2016, there are 21 recognized types of disabilities: Blindness, Low-vision, Leprosy Cured Persons, Hearing Impairment (deaf and hard of hearing), Locomotor Disability, Dwarfism, Intellectual Disability, Mental Illness, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Cerebral Palsy, Muscular Dystrophy, Chronic Neurological Conditions, Specific Learning Disabilities (Dyslexia), Multiple Sclerosis, Speech and Language Disability, Thalassemia, Hemophilia, Sickle Cell Disease, Multiple Disabilities including deaf-blindness, Acid Attack victim, and Parkinson's disease.