Gujarat reopens post-matric scholarships: ST students who missed 2025-26 can apply until 20 October, SC students until 31 October
The state’s scholarship portal has reopened post-matric applications for Scheduled Tribe students who missed the 2025-26 round, from 1 to 20 October, and for Scheduled Caste students for 2026-27 until 31 October. The ST window for 2026-27 runs to 30 November.
The Gujarat Scholarship Portal (gssp.gujarat.gov.in, linked with digitalgujarat.gov.in) is carrying three scholarship windows for SC and ST students this month. Gujarat University's scholarship cell circulated the news to its departments and affiliated colleges on 1 October 2026, asking them to tell students at once.
The three windows
| Who | Academic year | Window |
|---|---|---|
| Scheduled Tribe students who did not apply in time ("remaining students") | 2025-26 | 1 to 20 October 2026 |
| Scheduled Caste students, reopened for those still left | 2026-27 | 1 to 31 October 2026 |
| Scheduled Tribe students | 2026-27 | 1 September to 30 November 2026 |
The SC window for 2026-27 originally ran from 6 July to 30 September. If you missed that date, this is the reopening.
What ST students can claim
The tribal development department's guidelines for 2026-27 list these post-matric schemes:
- Umbrella post-matric scholarship (centrally sponsored) — maintenance allowance plus tuition fee, for boys and girls with family income below ₹2.5 lakh a year. An OTR number is compulsory for this scheme.
- Girls with family income above ₹2.5 lakh — maintenance allowance plus tuition fee.
- Boys with family income between ₹2.5 lakh and ₹6 lakh — a state scheme paying maintenance allowance plus tuition fee.
- Food-bill assistance of ₹1,500 a month for ten months for students living in a college-attached hostel, family income below ₹6 lakh.
- Instrument assistance for first-year students — ₹15,000 for medical, ₹10,000 for engineering and ₹5,000 for diploma courses, family income below ₹6 lakh.
Each of the first three has a separate variant for students holding a freeship card. A freeship-card holder must apply under that variant, and one who misses the deadline loses the benefit despite holding the card.
Before you click submit
- Bank account: money is paid only into an account seeded with your Aadhaar and enabled for direct benefit transfer. You can check the seeding status on the NPCI website.
- One application per Aadhaar number.
- For SC students — biometric eKYC: for centrally sponsored post-matric schemes, the portal pulls your Aadhaar-based biometric eKYC from the state's ration-card database using your ration-card member ID. You can submit only if that status shows "Yes". If it does not, get it done through the My Ration app, the supply branch at the mamlatdar's office (or the zonal office in a municipal corporation), the VCE at your gram panchayat, or your school principal. You need a ration card with your name on it and your Aadhaar seeded.
- The ST guidelines ask hostellers for a hostel certificate from the hostel authority, and students studying outside Gujarat to send attested copies of all documents to their district office as well.
- The SC guidelines ask students to print the submitted form and hand it, with the supporting documents, to their school, college or institution.
The guidelines ask students not to wait for the last day. For the ST students who missed last year, 20 October is less than two weeks away.
CareerBox News Desk — reporting on the scholarship notices on the Gujarat Scholarship Portal, the 2026-27 post-matric guidelines of the Directorate of Tribal Development and the Directorate of Scheduled Caste Welfare, Gujarat, and Gujarat University’s scholarship-cell circular of 1 October 2026. Official portal: gssp.gujarat.gov.in. Dates and eligibility change; confirm them on the official portal before you act.