AI-Enabled Scholarship and Fellowship Management System for Scheduled Tribes

• I.Description
• A.Background

The Ministry of Tribal Affairs (MoTA) implements scholarship and fellowship schemes to provide financial assistance to Scheduled Tribe (ST) students pursuing higher education in India and abroad. These include schemes such as the National Fellowship for Scheduled Tribe (NFST) for eligible research programmes in India and the National Overseas Scholarship (NOS) for eligible Master's and Ph.D. programmes abroad. The implementation of these schemes involves multiple stages, including applicant registration, online application, document submission, eligibility verification, scrutiny, screening, selection, communication, and post-selection/fellowship management. At present, several stages involve manual scrutiny, repeated correspondence and multiple levels of verification, resulting in processing delays, repetitive administrative effort, limited real-time visibility and scope for errors in verification and workflow management. There is therefore a need for a common, secure, transparent and intelligent digital platform that can streamline the end-to-end administration of MoTA scholarship and fellowship schemes while allowing the scheme-specific eligibility, selection and documentation requirements to be configured within a common system.

B. Description The problem statement envisages development of a single digital platform for end-to-end management of scholarship and fellowship schemes implemented by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs for Scheduled Tribe students. It should bring the complete process, i.e., from application submission and eligibility verification to document scrutiny, selection, communication and post-selection management, onto one integrated system. It should be capable of handling the different eligibility criteria, documents and selection processes applicable to individual schemes through a configurable system. Further, the platform should use automation and AI-based tools, wherever appropriate, to reduce manual verification, identify incomplete or deficient applications, support faster processing and improve the accuracy and transparency of the selection process. Finally, the system should provide separate interfaces for applicants and administrators, enabling applicants to track their applications and respond to deficiencies, while enabling Ministry officials to monitor applications, verification, selection and scheme performance through dashboards and reports.

C. Expected Solution An AI-enabled Scholarship and Fellowship Management System should be developed to provide an integrated digital workflow for managing scholarship and fellowship schemes implemented by MoTA for Scheduled Tribe students. The solution should: Enable end-to-end digital application management, covering application submission, document upload, eligibility verification, scrutiny, selection and communication. Automate and support eligibility and document verification using configurable scheme-specific rules and AI-based tools such as OCR/document intelligence, wherever appropriate. Support transparent screening and selection by applying approved scheme criteria to identify eligible applicants and assist in merit-based selection, while retaining appropriate human oversight. Provide application tracking and workflow management for applicants and administrators, including deficiency identification, communication, resubmission and status tracking. Provide dashboards and analytics to enable MoTA to monitor applications, verification, selection and scheme performance across relevant parameters. The overarching goal is to improve the overall efficiency, transparency and accountability of MoTA's scholarship and fellowship administration by reducing manual effort, accelerating processing, improving verification accuracy and providing a seamless digital experience for applicants and administrators. II. Ministry/ Department: Ministry of Tribal Affairs III. Category: Software IV. Theme: Smart Education

V. YouTube Link/ Video Link: NA VI. Data Link Set: https://tribal.nic.in/ScholarshiP.aspx https://dbttribal.gov.in/AllScheme.aspx