CHENNAI: The Directorate of Government Examination (DGE) has announced that the exam for the National Means Cum-Merit Scholarship Scheme (NMMS) will be conducted on January 10 and students can apply for the exam till December 23.

As per the DGE notification, the earlier deadline to apply for the exam for 2025-26 was on December 20. Due to high turnout of students to register for the exam, the deadline has been extended to 6 pm on December 23.

According to the DGE, more than 1.72 lakh candidates applied for the exam on Friday, which is over 52,000 additional candidates who have registered for the exam on the previous day. In Chennai alone, 4,992 candidates applied for the exam on Friday and 3,281 candidates applied on Thursday.

Speaking to DT Next, a DGE official said, “Noticing high registration count and interest among students to apply for the exam, we decided to extend the deadline by a few days.”

Under the Ministry of Education, the NMMS exams are conducted each year for Class 8 students from economically weaker backgrounds having shown meritorious academic performances so far. In the 2024-25 academic year, over 2.30 lakh students from across TN applied for the exam. Among which, 6,695 class 8 students were selected.

As per the modalities of the scheme, only those hailing from families with a total annual income less than Rs 1.5 lakh are eligible for the scholarship. The Class 8 students who clear the test will start receiving a monthly scholarship of Rs 1,000 from classes 9-12.