Government Launches PM-AJAY Portal and Mobile App to Digitise Scheduled Caste Development Scheme

On 25 May 2026, the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment launched the PM-AJAY portal and the AJAY mobile application to fully digitise the implementation of the Pradhan Mantri Anusuchit Jaati Abhyuday Yojana (PM-AJAY). PM-AJAY is a 100 per cent centrally funded scheme aimed at the socio-economic development of Scheduled Caste (SC) communities across the country.

PM-AJAY was launched in 2021-22 by merging three earlier centrally sponsored schemes: the Pradhan Mantri Adarsh Gram Yojana, Special Central Assistance to the Scheduled Castes Sub Plan, and the Babu Jagjivan Ram Chhatrawas Yojana. The scheme runs through three components — Adarsh Gram (village development), Grants-in-Aid for skilling and livelihoods, and the construction of hostels in educational institutions. The portal tracks progress across more than 47,000 SC-majority villages and over four million beneficiaries.

For the Adarsh Gram component, paper-based village-level planning will be replaced by digital workflows. A national dashboard will monitor development against 50 socio-economic indicators across 10 developmental domains, and funds will be released in a milestone-linked manner, triggered automatically once Village Development Plans are approved digitally. For the Grants-in-Aid component, the portal works as a central management information system that brings together state-wide financial data on livelihood and skilling work. For the hostel component, it will monitor the physical and financial progress of construction and repair work.

The AJAY mobile application extends these features to field-level users. It allows offline door-to-door surveys, digital beneficiary registration and real-time generation of Village Development Plans. For hostel works, field inspectors can upload geo-tagged and time-stamped photographs from project sites to verify that infrastructure milestones have been met. The app also offers role-based access control, a unified login and integration with existing government portals.