803, then 766, then 455.
That is the number of students from Jammu and Kashmir who received the National Scholarship for Post Graduate Studies in 2023-24, 2024-25 and 2025-26. The line has nearly halved in two years. Alongside it, PMSSS beneficiaries have slid from 14,526 to 14,411 to 13,794.
Those figures were tabled in the Legislative Assembly this week, in a Higher Education Department reply to a question from Budgam MLA Aga Syed Muntazir Mehdi about why students in rural and far-flung colleges struggle to reach internships, fellowships and apprenticeships. What makes the reply unusual is that the department did not deflect. It named the problem.
The department's own diagnosis
Three barriers were listed. The first is structural: a "limited local industrial footprint, creating geographical and industry-academia gaps." There simply are not enough firms near a degree college in, say, Akhnoor or Ramnagar to absorb its students for a semester.
The second is the one you can actually do something about today — "inadequate awareness and digital reach regarding national fellowships and apprenticeships in rural and far-flung colleges." Translated: the schemes exist, the seats exist, and students do not know.
The third is "the need for more industry-aligned practical skill training."
This matters more now than it used to, because under the Four-Year Undergraduate Programme rolled out with NEP-2020, an internship is not optional garnish. It is built into the degree. A student who cannot find one is not missing an enrichment opportunity; they are facing a credit requirement with no obvious way to meet it.
What the government says it is doing
Four fixes were listed, all in progress rather than done:
Industry-aligned vocational and minor courses being introduced under NEP-2020.
An implementation plan "being worked out" to integrate NATS and NAPS apprenticeships directly into the FYUGP curriculum — so the apprenticeship counts as the internship.
Free skill-development programmes rolled out with NIELIT and NSDC.
MoUs with local industries, municipal bodies and PSUs, to create apprenticeship places close to where students actually live.
There is also a plan to link college career-guidance and placement cells into the National Career Service and the AICTE/NATS dashboards, so a single system shows what is open. No timeline was attached to any of it.
Don't wait for the plan. Here's the route that already works.
Every portal below is live right now, free, and open to a student in a district college exactly as much as to one in Jammu city. This is the awareness gap the department described — closing it for yourself takes an afternoon.
Register on NATS. The National Apprenticeship Training Scheme is the central route for graduate, diploma and technical apprenticeships, with a monthly stipend, and it is the one the department intends to fold into the FYUGP. Create a student profile, upload your marksheets, and apply to establishments directly. J&K's own NAPS push drew 15,000 registrations in a single week earlier this month — we explained how that scheme works here.
Put your name on the National Career Service (NCS) portal. Free registration, and it carries both job and internship listings. Jammu's own employment exchange route runs through the same system.
Use the AICTE Internship Portal if you are in a technical course — it is the one aggregator the department itself pointed at.
Check whether you qualify for the three AICTE scholarships that are open right now. All three pay ₹50,000 a year, all three cap family income at ₹8 lakh, all three are applied for on the National Scholarship Portal, and all three close on 31 October 2026:
Pragati — for girl students in AICTE-approved technical diploma or degree courses; up to two girls per family.
Saksham — for specially-abled students with at least 40% disability; about 1,000 scholarships a year.
Swanath — for orphans and other vulnerable categories; up to 2,000 a year, split between degree and diploma students.
The NSP deadline and the verification step your college has to complete after it are here.
Ask your college's placement cell for its NATS registration status. An apprenticeship needs the establishment and often the institution to be on the system. If your college is not, that is a concrete thing to raise — and it is the single fix that helps every student behind you as well.
The honest reading of those numbers
A falling beneficiary count is not automatically a scandal. Scholarship numbers move with application volumes, with verification rates, and with how many students clear the scheme's own filters; the reply did not attribute the decline to any one cause, and neither should anyone else. PMSSS 2026-27 applications for the PG scholarship were still recorded as under process.
But 803 to 455 is a steep enough slope to be worth watching, and it sits directly alongside a department stating on the record that rural students are not hearing about these schemes. Those two facts belong in the same sentence.
The useful response is not outrage. It is registration. The portals are open, the October deadline is real, and awareness is the one barrier on the department's list that does not require a new MoU, a new course or a new budget line to fix.
Sources: Higher Education Department reply, J&K Legislative Assembly, reported by The Northlines; AICTE Pragati scheme instructions; National Scholarship Portal.
