Students who are already searching
Postgraduate, professional-degree and study-abroad students who know the opportunities exist but can't tell which ones are worth their time. Certainty is what's missing, not information.
In development · launching 2026
India's education funding is scattered across a hundred doors.
Close to ₹1,00,000 crore moves through scholarships, grants and education loans every year. It sits behind disconnected portals, inconsistent rules and application forms that ask for the same documents again and again. We're building the layer that brings it together.
The money is not the problem. Finding your way to it is.
Government scholarships, bank and NBFC loans, CSR programmes, NGO trusts, university aid and international funding all operate on separate rails. Each has its own portal, its own vocabulary and its own idea of who qualifies. A student is expected to search all of it, interpret all of it, and judge their own eligibility against rules written for administrators.
Most give up somewhere in the middle. An estimated 10–15% of the funding available every year never reaches anyone, not because it ran out, but because the people it was meant for never got through the process.
51%
people we surveyed had decided not to apply for a scholarship or loan because they were not sure whether they qualified.
54%
rated their confidence in understanding eligibility rules at 1 or 2 out of 5.
87%
said a single trusted place to discover, check, apply and track would be valuable to them.
From our own primary research: 40 respondents across school, undergraduate, postgraduate and professional study, plus parents. A small, directional sample. We're sharing it because it shaped what we chose to build, not because it's meant as national statistics.
We exist to remove the financial and informational barriers that stop capable students from studying, and to turn a fragmented funding system into a transparent, human path that anyone can walk.
Vision
To become India's most trusted education-finance access platform, where every learner (whatever their background or wherever they live) can discover, access and secure the support they need with confidence and fairness.
Mission
To build a student-first platform that unifies scholarships, grants and education financing across public, private and global institutions; that makes complex eligibility legible; that removes procedural friction; and that gives clear, end-to-end guidance through honest, data-driven tools and real institutional partnerships.
What we're building
Five things, each aimed at a specific point where students currently lose the thread.
Know where you stand
Scheme rules read against your actual profile, so you learn whether you qualify before you spend a week on an application.
Your documents, once
One profile and one secure document vault, reused across every application instead of re-uploaded for each.
Everything in one place
Government schemes, bank and NBFC loans, CSR programmes, NGO grants, university aid and overseas funding, searchable together.
Nothing hidden
Verified scheme information, clear requirements and real timelines. No agents, no inflated promises, no guesswork.
Through to the end
Support that continues past the first approval: renewals, deadlines and multi-year funding, not a single transaction.
Built to work with, not against
Designed to sit alongside the National Scholarship Portal, DigiLocker, DBT and Jan Samarth rather than duplicate them.
How it will work
Discover
Tell us about your course, your family circumstances and where you're studying. Every relevant scheme surfaces in one list.
Check eligibility
See where you clearly qualify, where you might, and where you don't, with the reason stated in plain language.
Apply once
Build your profile and documents a single time, then carry them into every application you make.
Track
Follow each application's real status, with deadlines and required responses in one place.
Renew
Most funding has to be renewed. We'll keep that from quietly lapsing in your second or third year.
What we're holding ourselves to
Clarity
Fragmented information turned into decisions you can act on.
Confidence
You learn where you stand before you invest effort.
Transparency
Requirements, timelines and status, visible throughout.
Continuity
Support across the whole journey, not one application.
Trust
Verified information and unbiased recommendations.
Who this is for
Students starting from scratch
Undergraduates and first-generation learners with no one at home who has done this before. Step-by-step guidance, in language that assumes nothing.
Parents and families
Often the ones who actually decide, and who carry the risk. Clear, honest information so a family can make a financing decision without being sold anything.
For colleges, NGOs, CSR teams and lenders
The same fragmentation that loses students also costs you: weak beneficiary targeting, poor-quality applications, manual verification and very little visibility into outcomes. We're building the institutional side alongside the student side: better-matched applicants, less administrative load, and real reporting on where funding actually lands.
If you run a scholarship, a CSR education programme or a lending product and want to talk early, write to partners@padhailikhai.in.
Why this is possible now
A decade ago this would have been a data-entry project. Today the rails exist. DigiLocker makes documents verifiable, Direct Benefit Transfer moves money to real beneficiaries, Jan Samarth connects credit-linked schemes, and the National Education Policy 2020 puts equitable access at the centre of national education goals.
The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 matters here too. It raises the bar for anyone handling student information, and that's exactly the bar a platform like this should want to clear. Consent-driven, purpose-limited handling isn't a constraint on this idea. It's the thing that makes it trustworthy enough to work.
Questions
Is this a government website?
No. PadhaiLikhai is independent. It's being built to work alongside government systems like the National Scholarship Portal, DigiLocker and Jan Samarth, not to replace them or speak for them.
Can I use it now?
Not yet. This site explains what we're building and why. Follow along on LinkedIn or Instagram and you'll know the moment it opens.
How will you know what I qualify for?
Scheme rules are public, but they're scattered and written for administrators. We're building an engine that reads those rules and checks them against your profile, so you find out where you stand before you invest effort.
Do you lend money?
No. We're not a lender, a bank, an agent or a broker. We help you reach funding that already exists from governments, institutions, NGOs, CSR programmes and lenders.
What happens to my documents and personal information?
This website collects nothing at all: no form, no signup, no tracking. When the platform launches it will be built on consent-driven, purpose-limited data handling in line with the DPDP Act, 2023.
Does this cover students going abroad?
Yes. It's built for Indian students wherever they study, including those applying to universities overseas.
We're building this in the open
Progress, research and what we learn along the way, posted as it happens. No signup, nothing to fill in.