Over 1.4 lakh students still await government scholarship disbursement

Information acquired through a Right to Information (RTI) inquiry reveals that as of December 18, 2025, approximately 1.42 lakh students have been waiting for the disbursement of scholarships related to 14 government schemes over the last five years. Out of these, the college authorities have 75, 000 applications that are awaiting their level, while 67, 000 are with the higher education department, according to the state records.

The delay is still eight years after the Maharashtra government implemented the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) system, Maha DBT, a centralized online portal through which the benefits of the scholarships are directly transferred to the students. Although the platform was inaugurated to restore transparency and efficiency, the procedure is still facing delays continuously.

For the academic year 2024, 25, 6563 applications are waiting for approval at the institute level, and 3096 applications are at the department level. Moreover, the second installment of 9153 scholarships is still to be released. The pending payment situation goes back several years, with the second instalment of 2105 applicants from 2021, 22 still unpaid.

Fund availability was the main reason for the delay, an official from the higher education department said. "We communicate to the departments the funds needed for each scholarship. It is in situations where the total amount is not released that the delays are recorded. As soon as we get the money, the scholarships are given, " the official said. "The situation of scholarship applicants has been like this for a very long time, " said Amar Ekad, president of the Care of Public Safety Association (COPS), who submitted the RTI to the Directorate of Higher Education. "The departments and institutes that do not execute the scholarship schemes should be disgraced. The MahaDBT portal was created by the Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Education, for easy implementation, but students keep waiting for years."