Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare Shivraj Singh Chouhan launched a National Scholarship Portal (NSP) based Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) system for agriculture students on 10 August 2026, at ICAR-IARI, Pusa. Under the system, the government released ₹21.35 crore in scholarship and fellowship funds directly to over 6,000 agriculture students through DBT. Agricultural scholarships will now be paid out every month through DBT, instead of the irregular bulk disbursements used earlier.
About the National Scholarship Portal (NSP)
- What It Is: NSP is a centralised digital platform under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) that offers a single window for scholarship registration, verification, and Direct Benefit Transfer.
- Mechanism: Funds move directly into Aadhaar-seeded student bank accounts, cutting out intermediary processing delays.
- Coverage: Hosts scholarship schemes run by multiple central ministries, including Social Justice, Tribal Affairs, and Minority Affairs.
- Relevance Here: This launch brings agricultural scholarships, administered through ICAR, onto the same automated monthly DBT cycle already used for other central scholarship schemes.