Financial Assistance for Higher Studies(FAHS-ASSAM)

Nothing here runs on a standing calendar. A cycle opens when the Director signs an advertisement, published on the Directorate's website and in local dailies, and it closes on the date that advertisement prints.

Extensions here are scheme specific, and this scheme has drawn narrow ones twice. After the advertisement of 26 June 2025, the Director reopened the portal for twelve more days, until 31 August 2025, for left out applications under the Post-Matric Scholarship and this scheme only (Notice dated 19 August 2025). Eight months earlier the department narrowed a reopening further still, taking more applications for seven days from 1 November 2024 under this scheme and for the MBBS course alone (Notice board, SIRISH). Treat the printed last date as real and the extension as luck.

The community test is a document test, and the 2023 notification names exactly one issuer: a valid caste certificate certified or issued by the Deputy Commissioner of your district, or by an officer that office designates (Guideline, clause 6). The Directorate's older scheme page still describes a two-signature route, with the Deputy Commissioner certifying and the Director countersigning; the notification that superseded it stops at the district (Financial Assistance for Higher Studies, Directorate of Tea Tribes and Adivasi Welfare).

What the income test asks for is lighter than most people expect, and the proof is where the current guideline broke from the old one. The 2023 notification wants an undertaking from the parent or guardian, on the Annexure 1 format, stating that annual family income does not exceed Rs 5.00 lakh. The version on the Directorate's own scheme page asks instead for an income certificate of the parent or guardian and describes the scheme as open to the economically weaker sections of tea and ex tea garden tribes students (Financial Assistance for Higher Studies, Directorate of Tea Tribes and Adivasi Welfare). The undertaking is what the portal collects today, and the format to fill sits behind a download link on the scheme's own SIRISH page (Financial Assistance for Higher Studies, SIRISH).

Two portal-level conditions decide whether an otherwise eligible application ever reaches verification. SIRISH will not take an application without Aadhaar authentication, and the account that receives the money must be a scheduled bank account, Aadhaar seeded, and held in the applicant's own name, which rules out routing the payment through a parent (Directorate for Tea Tribe and Adivasi Welfare, SIRISH).

The bar that catches the most people is not in the eligibility list at all. The advertisement for the current cycle states that applicants applying repeatedly from different sub divisions shall in no case be considered, which rules out the common tactic of filing once from the tea estate sub division and once from the town where the college is (Advertisement notice, financial year 2026-27).

The other three bars are written into the guideline: a government service holder cannot apply, a detained student cannot claim for the same class twice, and holding this assistance closes off every other departmental scheme in that year except the Simon Sing Horo Special Post-Matric Scholarship (Guideline, clause 6).

There is no renewal form on this scheme and no second window for one. SIRISH sorts applicants into fresh and existing, where existing means only that you applied for this same scheme in the previous year, and such an account is asked for nothing beyond a mark sheet of the last examination passed and the current year admission fee receipt, or a Principal's recommendation in the receipt's place (Financial Assistance for Higher Studies, SIRISH). The caste certificate, the age proof and the passbook page are already on file.

Each year is a fresh sanction rather than a continuing grant. The guideline sets the targeted period of completion at 31 March of each financial year, and the detained student bar means a year you repeat cannot be claimed a second time (Guideline, clauses 6 and 13).

Find your course in the group table before you assume an amount.

The 2023 notification did not simply restate the older slabs. It added ME, M.Phil and PhD to the top group, lifted LLM into the middle one, and named BSc Nursing, MSc Nursing and B.Ed in the lowest, none of which the Directorate's earlier grouping listed at all.

Read that table from the notification, not from the Directorate's website. The scheme page on ttwd.assam.gov.in still carries the earlier grouping, in which IIT and Architecture sat in Group A, BBA sat beside MBA in Group B, and LAW and research work sat in Group C (Financial Assistance for Higher Studies, Directorate of Tea Tribes and Adivasi Welfare). An LLM student who reads only that page will price the award at Rs 25,000; the notification puts the degree in Group B at Rs 30,000.

Payment is an e-transfer into the account entered on the form, with no manual step in between (Guideline, clause 8), which is why the advertisement makes the accuracy of those bank details the applicant's own responsibility (Advertisement notice, financial year 2026-27).

Two of the papers this scheme wants are not documents you already hold, they are formats the department writes for you. The income undertaking follows the Annexure 1 format, downloadable from the scheme page, and the recommendation from the Head of the Institution is printed as a fill in the blanks letter at the end of the notification itself, with slots for the village or tea estate, the sub division and the class or semester (Guideline, Annexure and recommendation format). Taking that printed page to your principal is faster than asking for a letter drafted from scratch.

The upload list is shorter for a returning applicant than for a new one, and the age proof the portal accepts is broader than the record suggests: a birth certificate, an HSLC admit card or an HSLC pass certificate all work (Financial Assistance for Higher Studies, SIRISH).

Register once, apply every year. A first-timer creates the SIRISH account from three things and nothing else: an Aadhaar number, the mobile number linked to that Aadhaar, and a password they set themselves (How to register, SIRISH). The advertisement is explicit that anyone registered in an earlier cycle comes back through the established user ID and password instead of opening a second account (Advertisement notice, financial year 2026-27). Before either group reaches the form there is a small hurdle worth knowing about on the last day of a window: the portal is served from three mirrors, and the login page says in as many words to try another link if one does not work (Applicant portal mirror links, SIRISH).

Submitting is not the end of the applicant's work. The notification turns the acknowledgement receipt the portal issues into a summons document: when the Sub-Divisional Welfare Officer calls, you appear with that receipt and the originals of every file you uploaded (Guideline, clause 5). Because this scheme funds students at institutions outside Assam as readily as inside it, that is a trip home to budget for rather than a formality to discover late.

Tracking the application and the payment. SIRISH's own account of why the Directorate went online puts self-tracking at the centre of the change: under the paper route an applicant could not tell where a file had reached, and the portal was built so that status is visible after logging in (Directorate for Tea Tribe and Adivasi Welfare, SIRISH). The public confirmation, though, is the selected beneficiary list the Directorate uploads as a PDF on its own site, scheme by scheme and year by year; the 2021-22 list prints each selected student's application ID, sub division, bank and sanctioned amount, so an applicant can check selection and slab against their own application ID (List of selected beneficiaries for five scholarship schemes, 2021-22). The notice carrying those lists prints the escalation route in one line: clarification about the scholarships is to be sought from the SDWO of your respective sub division, which is where a payment that never arrives gets chased.

No file starts at the Directorate. Applications land first with the Sub-Divisional Welfare Officer, who examines them for correctness and puts a consolidated list to the Sub-Divisional Level Beneficiary Selection Committee; once that committee approves and signs, the list travels to Rupnagar over the online system, the Director merges every sub division's list into one, and the Chairman of the State Level Advisory Committee gives the final approval. Doubt at the Director's desk pushes a list back down for re-verification rather than out (Guideline, clause 5).

The body that actually picks the names is a local one. The Directorate's scheme page records it as chaired by a Minister, MLA, Deputy Commissioner or SDO (Civil), with sitting MLAs, four or five persons for the tea garden areas and the president or secretary of the labour union as members, and the Sub-Divisional Welfare Officer as member secretary (Financial Assistance for Higher Studies, Directorate of Tea Tribes and Adivasi Welfare).

How many students get paid in a year is therefore fixed nowhere in advance. Clause 2 of the notification sets the physical target at whatever the sub division offices submit as their requirement, so a year's list follows demand from the tea belt and the money released against the head (Guideline, clause 2). No merit rank, marks cut off or reservation split is published for this scheme.

Three of the notification's thirteen numbered heads are the department policing itself rather than the student. The Directorate has to file periodic progress reports with the Government and a utilization certificate in time, and the Tea Tribes and Adivasi Welfare Department has to ensure the Director's accounts are audited by the AG (Audit), Assam (Guideline, clauses 10 to 12). That paper trail is why the appearance before the Sub-Divisional Welfare Officer with originals is waived for nobody.

What the applicant signs up to is short: one application from one sub division, correct details of an account that is your own, and the scheme guideline read before the form is filled rather than after (Advertisement notice, financial year 2026-27).

The scheme page prints a direct number for queries about this scheme: Rajesh Barman, on +91 6000688304, between 9.30 AM and 5 PM on working days (Financial Assistance for Higher Studies, SIRISH). He is the same officer the portal names for the Simon Sing Horo Special Post-Matric Scholarship, so say which scheme you are calling about; the ANM, GNM and technical courses assistance and the Post-Matric Scholarship each have a different name and number against them (Simon Sing Horo Special Post-Matric Scholarship, SIRISH).

General correspondence goes to the Directorate at Rupnagar, Guwahati 32, on +91 88221-39494, with director-ttw@assam.gov.in and directoratetgtoffice00@gmail.com as the two published addresses (Contact page, SIRISH). Anything about a specific application after submission starts with the Sub-Divisional Welfare Officer of your sub division, not with either of those.