Eklavya Prashikshan Yojana - Coaching To Scheduled Tribe Student Studying In Class Xth, XIth & XIIth(EPY-CSTS)

Overview

About EPY-CSTS

Eklavya Prashikshan Yojana does not hand a Scheduled Tribe student a coaching seat. The family pays the tuition class in full, and Goa's Directorate of Tribal Welfare later returns three-quarters of that fee for a fixed list of board subjects. The terms have also shifted since the scheme was notified in 2022, most sharply on family income, so the call for your own academic year matters more than the original notification.

The Directorate of Tribal Welfare notified the scheme on 13 September 2022, and it appeared in the Official Gazette, Series I No. 27, on 6 October 2022 (Eklavya Prashikshan Yojana notification). As originally notified, it reimburses 75% of the fee a student pays a coaching institute in Goa, capped at Rs 10,000 per subject a year in rural areas and Rs 12,000 in urban areas, for the subjects listed against each class and stream. Its objectives pair coaching in those classes with preparation for professional courses such as engineering, medicine, architecture, paramedical sciences, law and chartered accountancy after Class XII.

Applications did not open with the notification. A Directorate of Tribal Welfare circular dated 24 July 2023 called it a newly formulated scheme, invited applications from the 2023-24 academic year and asked heads of institutes to publicise it among their ST students. Take-up stayed small. The Tribal Welfare Minister's written reply to the Goa Legislative Assembly, listed for answer on 16 January 2026, counts no beneficiaries in 2022-23 or 2023-24 and 12 in 2024-25, all of them in Ponda taluka (Assembly reply, Annexure IV).

The student this suits is already paying for tuition in Mathematics, Science, English or the Class XII stream subjects at a registered Goa coaching class, and belongs to one of Goa's notified tribes. The paper form offers three community options: Gawda, Kunbi and Velip. Families looking for NEET or JEE coaching support should know that Goa handles that under a different scheme with its own merit list.

Who runs it

Provider

At a glance

Key details

Calendar

Important dates

Only two application rounds are on record, one opened in July and the next in January, so every date below comes from a single document rather than a standing timetable:

The 2024-25 call came late in the academic year it covered, so a student should keep every certified receipt from the start of the year rather than wait for the notice.

Who can apply

Eligibility criteria

Four tests decide a claim: the tribe, the school, the class-and-subject group, and, since the 2025 call, the family's income and jobs. The official record covers the tribe and a regular, full-time school place; two points it leaves out change who actually qualifies.

The notification's selection clause is narrower than its general eligibility test. It limits the benefit to students attending regular classes in "the educational institutions in the State of Goa and aided by the Government of Goa", and to Scheduled Tribe communities notified in Goa (notification, clause 7). The July 2023 circular repeats the aided-school wording; the January 2025 call drops it and speaks only of educational institutions in the State of Goa. A student at an unaided private school should confirm their standing with the Directorate before counting on the refund.

The income test has changed. The 2022 notification says there is no income limit for parents or guardians, and the July 2023 circular repeated that there was no income criteria. The call for 2024-25, dated 29 January 2025, set two new conditions: annual family income must not exceed Rs 5.00 lakh, and the parents must not be working in a Central or State government department, a public sector unit or an aided institute (Applications invited for Eklavya Prashikshan Yojana, January 2025). No later call for this scheme appears on the Goa portal, and the Directorate's notifications page still lists only the 2022 scheme document, so that January 2025 call is the latest official statement of the income rule. The January 2026 Assembly reply describes the benefit but is silent on income.

Who cannot apply

Exclusions

Beyond open schooling, which the official record already names, the scheme's documents shut out five situations:

• Coaching outside Goa. The scope clause covers only coaching institutes within Goa that the Directorate of Education recognises or that are registered under the Goa Coaching Classes (Regulation) Act, 2001 (notification, clause 3).
• Integrated coaching centres run as private schools. The 2025 call makes students coached in such centres ineligible (January 2025 call).
• Families above the income line, or with a parent in a government, PSU or aided-institute job. The same 2025 call rules both out.
• Subjects outside the group for that class. Class X covers Mathematics, Science and English only, so tuition in Social Science or a second language earns nothing.
• Class XI in Commerce or Arts. In the notification's groups, Class XI appears only in the Science stream; Commerce and Arts students enter the scheme in Class XII.

Continuation

Renewal conditions

Nothing carries over from one year to the next. The notification says the student must apply within each academic year, that there is no provision of deemed renewal, and that the benefit can be claimed once in a particular standard (notification, clause 8). A student who stays eligible from Class X through Class XII therefore files up to three separate applications, one per class. Repeating a failed class brings no second reimbursement for it, and a change of stream in Class XI or XII still counts as the one sanction allowed in that class.

What you get

Award & benefits

What comes back is three-quarters of the fee on the certified receipt, never a flat grant, and it arrives in two instalments. Under the 2022 notification, 50% of the fees comes back in the first term on the certified fee receipt and the remaining 25% follows once the first-term attendance certificate is in (notification, clause 12). That notification's ceiling runs per subject, so a Class XII Science student coached in all four subjects claimed against four separate ceilings, not one.

The newer documents describe the cap and the instalments differently, as the table shows in date order. The latest dated one, the Minister's reply to the Legislative Assembly listed for 16 January 2026, ties the refund to the maximum fee chargeable as notified under the Goa Coaching Classes (Regulation) Act, 2001 and releases the sanctioned amount in two equal halves (Assembly reply, Annexure III). The January 2025 call uses the same Act-based limit. Neither document puts that maximum in rupees, so ask the Directorate which ceiling it applies before enrolling in an expensive class.

• The student shall be reimbursed 75% of the fees paid (upto a ceiling of ₹ 10,000/- per annum per subject in rural areas and ₹ 12,000/- per annum per subject in urban areas) to the coaching institute upon submission of the fee receipt that is duly certified by the competent authority of the coaching institute.
• 50% of the Fees: Reimbursed as a first instalment during the First Term of the Academic year upon submission of the fee receipt.
• 25% of the Fees: Reimbursed as a second instalment upon the submission of the Attendance Certificate of the First Term.
• The payment shall be done in the Direct Benefit Transfer mode upon submission of the fee receipt along with the fee structure duly certified by the competent authority of the coaching institute.

What to prepare

Documents required

Half the file comes from the coaching class, not the family. The institute's head fills Part B of the form with the institute's registration number, certifies the student's enrolment and subject, signs under the office seal, and encloses the institute's registration certificate and its fee structure (notification, application format). The same head identifies the student on the Aadhaar consent section.

On the student's side, the form asks for self-attested copies rather than originals, and adds two items the record's list does not show: a self-attested passport-size photograph signed across, and a self-attested copy of the bank passbook. The 2025 call brought in an income ceiling but says only that the documents are listed in the application form, and Part A of the 2023 form on the Department's Application page has no income line at all. Ask the office which proof of income it accepts when collecting the form.

Step by step

How to apply

The application is on paper, filed with the Directorate of Tribal Welfare rather than the Directorate of Education. The notification and the 2025 call set this order:

1. Collect the form from the Directorate's head office on the 5th Floor, Shram Shakti Bhavan, Patto, Panaji, or the Deputy Director's office in the Old Collectorate Building, Margao (January 2025 call). The July 2023 circular pointed North Goa students to Panaji and South Goa students to Margao for the form. The Department also posts the form on its Application page.
2. Pay the coaching class and get the fee receipt and the group-wise fee structure certified by its competent authority.
3. Fill Part A, fix and sign across the photograph, and have the coaching head complete and seal Part B.
4. Hand the completed file to the Panaji or Margao office before the closing date printed in that year's call.
5. After the first term, submit the attendance certificate to release the second instalment.

Checking Where the Claim Stands

The scheme runs on paper. myScheme lists offline as its only application mode, and the Chief Minister Scholarship Portal, which runs its own Track Application service, describes Eklavya Prashikshan Yojana but leaves it off its category-wise list of eligible Tribal Welfare schemes. Follow-up therefore goes through the Directorate's Panaji or Margao office, or the Directorate on 0832-2438024 or dir-tw.goa@nic.in (Directorate contact page). Each instalment reaches the account named on the bank mandate form, so the passbook is where a payment first shows.

How winners are picked

Selection process

Claims are not ranked against one another. The notification's selection clause opens with "All the Scheduled Tribes Students shall be eligible for the benefits under the scheme", and the Director of Tribal Welfare sanctions and releases the amount (notification, clauses 7 and 14). In practice a claim stands or falls on its paperwork: a certified fee receipt, an institute that meets the recognition or registration test, and the attendance certificate for the second part.

Fine print

Terms & conditions

The declaration on the form carries the scheme's hardest terms. The student promises not to drop out of the course mid-year and to return the money to the Directorate before the academic year ends if they do, and accepts that false information or a breach of the conditions lets the sanctioning authority cancel the assistance and recover all of it, apart from any penal action the law allows (notification, application format).

The coaching institute signs an undertaking too. If the student leaves, discontinues or accepts any other assistance, the institute must report it at once so that payment stops, and any undisbursed amount it holds goes back to the Government account. A student weighing a second coaching scheme alongside this one should raise that clause with the Directorate first.

Get help

Contact

A question about a pending instalment, a coaching class's registration or the income proof for the current call goes to the Directorate of Tribal Welfare, which sanctions every Eklavya Prashikshan Yojana claim. Its Panaji office is on the fifth floor of Shram Shakti Bhavan, Patto, with the telephone on 0832-2438024, the fax on 0832-2438052 and email at dir-tw.goa@nic.in (contact page). South Goa families can use the Deputy Director's office in the Old Collectorate Building, Margao, the second counter that issues this form (January 2025 call).

Source

Official links

Frequently asked questions

From the official scheme FAQ (myScheme)

Read this

Disclaimer

Disclaimer

Scheme details are compiled from myScheme, the Government of India’s official scheme-discovery platform, and are reproduced without alteration. Amounts, deadlines and eligibility change between cycles, so always confirm on the official links above before applying. Expertie does not process applications or charge fees.

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