A change in how the Union government allocates scholarships under its flagship INSPIRE-Scholarship for Higher Education (SHE) scheme has sharply reduced the number of awards available to school boards of several states, including Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, while boosting quotas for students from other state and central education boards, according to official data for 2024 and 2025.
In 2025, the Department of Science and Technology (DST) introduced quotas by school education board based on the number of Class 12 examinees rather than the number of applications received from students of each board. In 2024, the UP board students made up 49% of the 21,392 valid applications received nationwide for the Scholarship for Higher Education (SHE) component of the Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research (INSPIRE) scheme, and 6,129 students were provisionally selected out of a total of 12,000 scholarships. In 2025, the state board students received only 2,095 of the 12,000 scholarships, despite 2.54 million Class 12 examinees. Every year, around 12,000 INSPIRE-SHE scholarships are awarded to students pursuing undergraduate and postgraduate courses in basic and natural sciences. Eligible candidates include students in the top 1% of their respective Class 12 board examinations and those qualifying through specified national-level entrance examinations. Sohane scored 87% in the 2025 Uttar Pradesh Board Class 12 examinations, above the state’s 81% cut-off for students in the top 1%.
Pranit Sohane, a BSc student at Swargiya Sundar Lal Shivhare Degree College in Hamirpur, affiliated with Bundelkhand University, Jhansi, said the revised formula could disadvantage students in states with a large pool of applicants.
The new formula, however, does not directly account for how many students from each board enrol in eligible undergraduate courses in basic and natural sciences. Nor do the revised guidelines specify whether unfilled board-wise allocations will be redistributed to other boards.
