Gujarat post-matric scholarship for ST students 2026-27: last date 30 November

Gujarat runs three post-matric scholarship routes for ST students, and which one you apply under is decided by your family income and by whether you are a boy or a girl. The window is the same for all of them: applications opened on 1 September 2026 and close on 30 November 2026.

The income rule is the part worth reading twice.

• Family income below ₹2.50 lakh a year — you apply under the Umbrella Scheme for Education of ST Students Post-Matric Scholarship, which is the Government of India scheme. Open to boys and girls alike.
• Girls with family income above ₹2.50 lakh — you apply under VKY 156, the state's Post Matric Scholarship for ST Girls Students. The notification sets no upper income limit on this route.
• Boys with family income between ₹2.50 lakh and ₹6.00 lakh — you apply under VKY-8, the state's Post Matric Scholarship for ST Boys Students Only.

Read those three lines together and the asymmetry stands out. An ST girl in Gujarat has no income ceiling at all. An ST boy is capped at ₹6.00 lakh, and above that the notification lists no post-matric route for him. That is the state's own design, not a gap in this page.

What you get, and the figure we are not going to give you. Every post-matric row in the notification promises the same two things: a maintenance allowance and your tuition fee. The document does not state the rupee rate for either — it lists the benefit only as "maintenance allowance + tuition fee". Rather than repeat a figure from somewhere else, this page says plainly that Gujarat has not published one here. Ask your district Tribal Development office, or read the amount the portal shows you when you apply.

Free-ship card holders apply under a different row, not the ordinary one. Each of the three routes above has a paired version marked "(Freeship Card / Medical Loan Student Only)". If you hold a free-ship card you must apply under that version. And there is a trap in it worth knowing before you delay: missing the deadline is not forgiven because you hold a card. The notification states that a student who fails to apply within the time limit is not eligible for the benefit even though they hold a free-ship card. Your tuition fee and maintenance are paid into your own Aadhaar-seeded account, and you then have to deposit the fee with your institution inside the time it sets.

If you are on the central scheme, do this before anything else. An OTR, the One-Time Registration number, is compulsory for anyone applying under the Umbrella Scheme for Education of ST Students Post-Matric Scholarship, including its free-ship card version. Get the OTR first. It is the step that quietly costs people the deadline.

Your bank account has to be right, or the money cannot reach you. The notification is specific about all of it:

• The account must be seeded with your Aadhaar
• It must be DBT-enabled
• It must not be closed or dormant
• You can check the seeding at npci.org.in, under Customer, then Bharat Aadhaar Seeding Enabler (BASE), then Aadhaar Mapped Status
• If it is unseeded, or seeded to a bank you do not want the money in, use the Aadhaar Seeding and Deseeding facility to change it

How to apply, step by step. Go to gssp.gujarat.gov.in. In the Login/Register drop-down choose Citizen Login. Applying for the first time, click New Registration (Citizen) and register with a mobile number and an email address. A one-time password goes to that mobile, so use a number you actually hold — if the number you registered with is gone, you have to establish your identity at the district office to change it. If you have forgotten your password, or your old one no longer satisfies the current password policy, use Forgot Password? Click here.

Applying through digitalgujarat.gov.in works too: choose Services, then Scholarship Services, then Request a New Service, and pick the year. The schemes are listed department by department — and here is the detail worth knowing before you scroll: schemes still open appear in green, and schemes that have stopped accepting applications appear in red.

The form runs in five stages: Registration Detail, Bank Details, Academic Details, Disability Detail and Attachment. Check every field, then Verify Mobile Number, then Confirm and Final Submit.

Two rules that catch people out.

• One application per Aadhaar number. You cannot apply twice, under any scheme.
• If you study outside Gujarat, the online application is not enough on its own. You must also have copies of all your documents attested by your institution and submit them to your district office.

If you live in a hostel you need a hosteller certificate, certified by the competent authority of that hostel, submitted with the application.

The notification closes with the department's own advice, and it is worth taking: do not wait for the last date.

Checked on 5 September 2026 against the Gujarat State Scholarship Portal and the Tribal Development Department's own 2026-27 post-matric guidelines document, which the portal links. Gujarat changes these schemes between years, so open the official page linked above before you apply.