Saksham Scholarship Scheme was launched in 2014-15, with the objective of encouraging economically weaker differently abled students to pursue technical education at Diploma and Degree levels. The information is a written reply to a Lok Sabha question by HRD Ministry.

Scholarship amount of Rs. 30,000 is provided towards tuition fee reimbursement and Rs. 20000 as contingency allowance. 

Under the scheme, 1000 scholarships per annum are available. Number of application received from eligible candidates under the scheme every year, remained low despite wide publicity.

Year-wise details of applications received are given in the table below:

A committee of experts was set up, to suggest measures for improving the performance of the scheme.

The committee recommended that a provision be made under the scheme to support differently abled student for purchase of Aids and Assistive Devices, in cases where tuition fee was either exempted or less than Rs.30,000/-.

As the number of application received during 2016-17 still remained low, the scheme was again amended in 2017, to remove the restriction of Centralized Counselling as a criterion for selection, making differently abled students, who were directly admitted to All India Council for Technical Education approved institutions, also eligible to apply for the scholarship.