Tripura Students Facing Aadhaar Registration Crisis Amid DBT Scholarship Deadline

By Our Correspondent

Agartala, May 31, 2025

Students across Tripura, especially those belonging to the Scheduled Tribe (ST) category, are facing tremendous difficulties in enrolling for Aadhaar or updating Aadhaar bank account linkages, an essential requirement for receiving Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) under the Post-Matric Scholarship (CSS) for the academic year 2024-25.

According to a recent notification issued by the Directorate of Tribal Welfare, Government of Tripura, the scholarship disbursement process that began in April 2025 has encountered major hurdles. The beneficiary status of 1983 ST students, including 1338 fresh applicants and 645 renewal cases has been rejected due to two key issues:

“UID NEVER ENABLED FOR DBT” and “UID DISABLED FOR DBT.”

These issues have emerged due to Aadhaar not being properly seeded with the bank accounts of the students. The affected students have been directed to immediately contact their respective banks to link their Aadhaar number with their bank account to enable Aadhaar based DBT payments. However, the problem runs deeper.

Several students and their families have reported that new Aadhaar registration applications are routinely rejected without any explanation, especially in urban Aadhaar centres under Municipal Corporations and Common Service Centres (CSC). With no offline alternative available in Tripura for Aadhaar enrollment or updates, students, many of whom reside in remote tribal areas are left in limbo with no viable means to rectify the issue before the scholarship deadline.

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has recently introduced the Bharat Aadhaar Seeding Enabler (BASE) platform to allow students to seed or de-seed Aadhaar in a self service mode for DBT, accessible through the National Scholarship Portal (NSP) at https://scholarships.gov.in/student-announcements. Still, this digital provision assumes students already have valid Aadhaar cards and access to functioning internet infrastructure, something many in tribal and interior areas of Tripura lack.

Students listed in Annexure-I of the notification are required to complete the Aadhaar bank seeding by 13th June 2025, and those in Annexure-II must do so by 4th June 2025. The Department of Tribal Welfare has also advised all students to verify their Aadhaar and bank linkage status by visiting https://www.npci.org.in and https://uidai.gov.in.

Despite these advisories, the ground reality remains grim. Many students are caught in a bureaucratic web, with rejections and technical issues blocking their access to essential scholarships. Civil society groups and student bodies have urged the state and central governments to introduce offline Aadhaar registration options, especially in tribal and rural areas, and improve accountability at Aadhaar enrollment centres.

The Directorate of Tribal Welfare has appealed to all stakeholders, including institute nodal officers, district officers, and welfare officers, to spread awareness and assist students in completing the required updates on time. The department’s website https://twd.tripura.gov.in and social media handles will provide further updates.

As the deadline approaches, thousands of deserving students remain in uncertainty, struggling not because of academic failure, but due to online system failure.

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