More than 5.42 lakh students across Assam are set to receive direct monthly cash support for their education — a combined disbursement of ₹58.59 crore under two state welfare schemes announced by the Chief Minister's Office of Assam on Thursday, 15 October 2026.

₹48.22 crore flowing to 4.39 lakh girls under Nijut Moina

The larger of the two tranches belongs to Nijut Moina, Assam's flagship girl-student assistance programme. Under this round, 4,39,598 girl students will collectively receive ₹48.22 crore. The monthly stipends are tiered by level: ₹800 per month for students in Classes XI and XII, ₹1,250 per month for undergraduates, and ₹2,500 per month for postgraduate students.

The graduated structure is deliberate — the amounts rise as a student climbs the academic ladder, at precisely the stage where financial pressure most often forces early exit. Dropout rates in India historically spike at the transition from school to college, and again before postgraduate enrolment, both points where Nijut Moina now plants a financial floor.

Nijut Babu extends the net to 1.02 lakh boys

Running alongside it, Nijut Babu — the scheme's counterpart for male students — will disburse ₹10.37 crore to 1,02,501 boys. Monthly support under this scheme is set at ₹1,000 for undergraduate and ₹2,000 for postgraduate studies. Nijut Babu does not cover Classes XI–XII, reflecting the programme's focus on higher-education retention specifically for boys.

Together, the two schemes cover a wide cross-section of Assam's student population — from a Class XI girl in a district college town to a postgraduate scholar at a state university — with a single policy lever: keep the money coming every month, remove the excuse to drop out.

Assam's broader push on student welfare

Indian state governments have increasingly leaned on targeted direct-benefit schemes to address enrollment gaps in higher education. Assam has been among the more active states on this front, layering multiple student welfare programmes across gender and education level. The twin-scheme model — separate tracks for girls and boys with different stipend scales — acknowledges that the barriers to continued education are not identical across genders or across the school-to-college divide.

With ₹58.59 crore committed across both schemes in this single cycle, the scale of the outlay underscores how central direct student support has become to Assam's education policy calculus. The real test, as always, will be the speed and completeness of actual disbursement — and whether the students most at risk of dropping out are the ones the money actually reaches first.