This is the scholarship for the student who did everything right and still cannot pay the fee. You earn a regular merit seat at a public university, and then, instead of your family selling something or you dropping out after a semester, HEC's money pays the tuition and gives you Rs 6,000 a month for the whole degree.
What surprises most students is how local it is. HEC gives the money to each participating university, and the university decides everything that matters to you: when the forms open, how many seats there are this year, which programmes are included and who gets selected. The committee that decides is chaired by the Vice-Chancellor and includes outside members, and it looks at your family's real circumstances: income, bills, the number of brothers and sisters in school.
There is no test and no national deadline. That is good news and a trap at the same time, because the window at your university can open and close in the first weeks of a semester while you are still waiting for an announcement that never comes.