Junior/Senior Fellowship in the Field of Fine Arts(JSIFFFA)

Overview

About JSIFFFA

The Junior/Senior Fellowship in the Field of Fine Arts is a Gujarat government award run by the Gujarat State Lalit Kala Academy, and it is not the Ministry of Culture's junior and senior fellowship that tops search results for the same words. It was set up to pay a monthly stipend to a handful of working artists while they carry out a project of their own. Its detailed rules come from a state resolution of 1998, and as read in September 2026 the academy's website carried no call for applications, no form and no budget line for it.

The Sports, Youth and Cultural Activities Department created the scheme by resolution under the title "Award of Fellowship to Youth and Senior Artist", the name it still carries on the academy's list of government resolutions (Gujarat State Lalit Kala Academy, government resolutions).

The resolution names four kinds of work a fellowship can pay for: an experimental approach in art, advanced training in one field of art, a project to revive a disappearing Indian art or folk art, and research in the various fields of art (Award of Fellowship to Youth and Senior Artist, scanned resolution). The money follows a project the artist proposes, not enrolment in a course. myScheme names the implementing body the Gujarat State Fine Arts Academy (myScheme); on its own website the same body calls itself the Gujarat State Lalit Kala Academy.

An archived copy of the academy's scheme list from July 2017 still names "જુનિયર/સિનિયર ફેલોશીપ" (junior/senior fellowship) (archived academy scheme list). The scheme list on its rebuilt website no longer includes it (current academy scheme list), and neither does the proposed 2026-2027 budget, whose heads run from the national photography competition down to staff salaries and office costs without a fellowship line (academy budget page). No withdrawal order appears on the resolution list either. As read in September 2026, the official record shows neither a running fellowship nor a closed one, and nothing on the academy's website says a call is coming.

Who runs it

Provider

At a glance

Key details

Calendar

Important dates

Every date the academy has put on record for this fellowship lies in the past, from the 1998 resolution to the archived scheme list, and none of them is a last date to apply. Read in order, they chart how the fellowship dropped off the academy's pages:

The academy's news page lists no current items (academy news), so a newspaper advertisement of the kind the 1998 rules describe remains the signal to watch for.

Who can apply

Eligibility criteria

Gujarat residence and active work in the named arts are only half of the test. The 1998 resolution also has each applicant set out an educational qualification in art alongside a project report describing the work the fellowship would pay for (scanned resolution).

That qualification clause is the practical hurdle for a self-taught artist, because the published document list opens with certificates in the field of art and no alternative route is described.

Who cannot apply

Exclusions

The scheme publishes no exclusion list. Two limits follow from its own terms. An artist whose practice sits outside the named streams, photography for instance, is not covered, and an application without a project report gives the committee nothing to sanction, because the resolution ties each fellowship to the work the artist proposes (scanned resolution).

Continuation

Renewal conditions

A fellowship is sanctioned for one year. A second year is possible only if the academy's committee finds the fellow's work encouraging, and two years is the ceiling (scanned resolution; myScheme). The resolution leaves the extension to whichever committee sits at the time, so finishing the first year earns a review, not a right. No renewal form or progress-report format has been published.

What you get

Award & benefits

The academy's scholarships page, last updated in September 2016, put the whole award in one sentence. It offered ten young artists "૨,૦૦૦/- ની માસિક ફેલોશીપ", a monthly fellowship of two thousand rupees, and five senior artists "૩,૦૦૦/- ની ફેલોશીપ", three thousand rupees a month, "એક વર્ષ માટે", for one year (archived academy scholarships page). The same page recorded "૪.૦૦ લાખની જોગવાઇ", a provision of four lakh rupees, for the scheme in that financial year. No later resolution revising the rates appears on the academy's resolution list (government resolutions).

The stipend is the whole benefit. The 1998 resolution budgets separately for publicity, printing, the selection committee's travel allowances and other incidental costs, and it provides nothing to fellows for materials, travel or an exhibition of the finished work (scanned resolution).

• Fellowship for Senior Artists: ₹3,000/-per month. - Fellowship for Junior Artists: ₹2,000/- per month.

What to prepare

Documents required

The colour slides on the document list are the 1998 resolution's wording (scanned resolution), and the academy has published no rule on prints or digital images, so confirm the accepted format with the academy before sending original material.

The resolution also tells the committee to weigh each applicant's age, occupation, prizes and achievements alongside the work samples and the details of the project (scanned resolution). Proof of age and a list of exhibitions and awards are not on the published document list, but they answer questions the committee is instructed to ask.

Step by step

How to apply

Applications are offline. Under the 1998 rules the academy advertises the call in newspapers across Gujarat, sends circulars to art institutions, and has its committee scrutinise the completed forms (scanned resolution). The academy's citizen charter says its facilitation centre at Ravishankar Raval Kala Bhavan distributes the forms and literature for the academy's schemes and receives applications against an acknowledgement (academy citizen charter).

The form itself is the missing piece. The two official links myScheme gives for this fellowship, an old scheme page and an application-form PDF on the academy's domain, both returned a not-found page on the rebuilt site when checked in September 2026. The academy's Application Forms page carries three forms, and none is for the fellowship: one is for the children's painting workshop and two are for exhibition assistance (academy application forms).

The step-by-step process on myScheme needs a second look too. It tells applicants to download the form for the "Publication Support Scheme for Fine Arts" and notes that applications for book publication are invited every year, text that belongs to a different academy scheme (myScheme). Any fellowship form would have to come from the academy itself.

Tracking the Application and the Stipend

There is no online portal, application number or status page for this fellowship, so the trail is on paper. Keep the acknowledgement the facilitation centre issues when it accepts the file (academy citizen charter), and follow up by phone on 079-26425562, the number the academy's officers page lists for its secretary in charge (academy list of officers). No payment schedule has been published beyond the sanction-month rule under Terms & Conditions, so a stipend query goes to the same desk.

How winners are picked

Selection process

Fellows are chosen by a committee of expert artists appointed by the academy, which scrutinises the complete applications and selects the suitable candidates (scanned resolution). The resolution prescribes no written test and no interview.

The field is narrow. The academy's own description gives ten junior and five senior places for the whole state (archived academy scholarships page).

Fine print

Terms & conditions

The published conditions are few, and all of them come from the 1998 resolution (scanned resolution):

• The fellowship year is the financial year, April to March.
• The stipend is paid from the month the fellowship is sanctioned to the end of that financial year, so a fellow sanctioned in January, for example, is paid for three months of that year, not twelve.
• The state gave its approval on condition that the scheme's norms be checked against any other fellowship scheme it was running.
• The first year's cost was to be met from the academy's plan provision under the state's art and culture budget head.

Get help

Contact

The academy's officers page gives one telephone number, 079-26425562, and one email address, gujaratstatelalitkalaacademy@gmail.com, both for the secretary in charge (academy list of officers). The postal address is less settled. myScheme places the office at Ravishankar Raval Kala Bhavan, opposite Bhaikaka Bhavan near Law Garden in Ahmedabad (myScheme), and the citizen charter also puts the facilitation centre in that building (academy citizen charter). The footer of the rebuilt website, by contrast, gives the second floor of Abhilekhagar Bhavan on Ch Road in Gandhinagar (academy website). Call before posting a file or travelling to hand one in.

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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References

Sources