Loan For Foreign Study (E.B.C.)(LFS-EBC)

Overview

About LFS-EBC

Loan For Foreign Study (E.B.C.) is a government loan of up to Rs 15 lakh at 4% interest for Gujarat students from the Economically Backward Class who are going abroad for higher study. The E in E.B.C. stands for Economically, not the "Educationally" that the myScheme listing prints, and that one word changes the income test, the certificate you file and the figures you should trust. It is also a loan the state now makes very rarely: the lending directorate's year-end reports record one EBC loan in the year to March 2024, one in the year to March 2025 and none in the year to March 2026.

The money comes out of a state budget line, not a bank: in the year-end reports of the Director, Developing Castes Welfare, a directorate of Gujarat's Social Justice and Empowerment Department, this loan is the EBC row under Loan to Students for Higher Studies in Foreign Countries, a head otherwise spent almost wholly on SEBC students. The directorate's scheme page describes a loan of Rs 15.00 lakh at a 4% interest rate for study abroad and budgets it under two heads, SEBC and EBC. The same office serves the Socially and Educationally Backward Classes, the Economically Backward Classes, minorities and the Nomadic and De-notified Tribes, and on e-Samaj Kalyan the EBC loan sits inside a single service, Loan For Foreign Study, next to the much larger SEBC loan, with an eligibility block of its own.

The difference in scale is the first thing an EBC family should know. The directorate's year-end expenditure reports set a target for each category and record an achievement against it:

The reports do not say whether the achievement counts new sanctions or students paid during the year, and a zero target in the March 2023 and March 2024 reports did not stop EBC loans being recorded. The recent collapse is not for want of a target, though: the directorate aimed at 25 EBC loans in the year to March 2025 and recorded 1, according to its March 2025 report, and its March 2026 report shows no EBC loan and no EBC spending at all against a target of 13. The imbalance is older than that: the scheme page's own 2018-19 table shows 12 EBC loans against 365 SEBC loans, with Rs 98.50 lakh spent on the EBC side out of a Rs 600.00 lakh provision.

Who runs it

Provider

At a glance

Key details

Calendar

Important dates

The one date rule that binds every applicant is personal: the online application must be made before you leave India or within six months of arriving abroad, counted from your own travel date, which the form asks you to state. Beyond that, the directorate has announced this loan in rounds, and the dated notices on e-Samaj Kalyan show the pattern:

The closure and the two notices of 2022 name only the EBC foreign-study loan and the SEBC commercial pilot loan, never the SEBC foreign-study loan, so an EBC applicant should not assume the EBC window is open just because SEBC students are applying. The notice board carried no later round notice for the EBC loan when checked in September 2026, and the portal's list of the directorate's services marked Loan For Foreign Study as Open.

Who can apply

Eligibility criteria

Three tests decide an EBC application: the category certificate, the family income and the study plan. On the first two, the myScheme listing for this loan does not match the directorate's own pages.

Category and Income

The applicant must belong to the Economically Backward Class (આર્થિક રીતે પછાત વર્ગ in the Gujarati pages) and prove it with an Economically Backward Class certificate, which heads the EBC document list on the e-Samaj Kalyan scheme page, where the SEBC block beside it asks for a caste certificate instead. The myScheme listing describes the category as the "Educationally Backward Class (S.E.B.C.)", which is the other loan's category.

The EBC income test is stricter than the SEBC one. Gujarat's Mari Yojana scheme list states it in Gujarati: annual family income "રૂ. ૦૪.૫૦ લાખથી વધુ ના હોવી જોઈએ", that is, not more than four and a half lakh rupees. The EBC block on the directorate's e-Samaj Kalyan scheme page and the EBC section of its FAQ document set the same limit, also in Gujarati numerals. The myScheme eligibility list instead prints less than Rs 10 lakh, which is the ceiling in the SEBC block. The directorate is the lender and its pages carry the rule, so they govern: as read in September 2026, every one of them holds an EBC family to the lower limit.

Marks, Course and Family

The EBC block on the scheme page sets a single Standard 12 marks bar and, unlike the SEBC block, prints no lower bar for NT/DNT, More Backward or Extremely Backward students, although the directorate's FAQ document still repeats that relaxation for EBC applicants. Ask the district office which reading it applies before relying on the lower bar.

The course rule is muddier than the scheme page makes it look. The EBC block lists every level from diploma to PhD, for a course of at least one academic year or two semesters, and the FAQ document answers yes when asked whether Standard 12 leavers can apply; a later answer in the same document, though, speaks only of postgraduate courses after graduation. An undergraduate applicant should get the district office's reading in writing.

Only one member of a family can take this loan, according to the directorate's FAQ document, and the application form asks whether anyone else in the family has already had the benefit of the scheme.

Where the Official Pages and myScheme Disagree

The comparison below sets the directorate's pages against the myScheme listing on each point where they differ.

Who cannot apply

Exclusions

The directorate publishes no separate exclusion list, but its own papers show what sinks an application in practice. A family above the EBC income limit, or one that cannot produce an Economically Backward Class certificate, is outside the scheme, and so is a second child from a family that has already borrowed. An application sent back for missing papers is rejected automatically if the student does not complete it within the time allowed. After sanction, the parent's mortgage consent in the annexures accepts that the government will cancel the loan if the offered property cannot be mortgaged.

Continuation

Renewal conditions

The directorate publishes no renewal step: the loan is sanctioned once, for one course. What varies is how the money arrives. The directorate's FAQ document says the loan is paid out in equal parts according to the years of study abroad, while the myScheme summary describes a single payment, so the sanction order is the document that settles it for each student. In the joint undertaking the student and parent sign, they promise to use the money only for the approved study and to submit the details of study expenses with supporting papers, so keep fee receipts and bills from the first term.

What you get

Award & benefits

The ceiling is Rs 15.00 lakh at a 4% interest rate, and the e-Samaj Kalyan scheme page specifies simple interest at that annual rate. Rs 15 lakh is a maximum, not an entitlement: the application form asks for the total cost of the course abroad, the loan amount you are requesting, how you will meet the rest, and whether the foreign university is giving you a scholarship or fellowship and how much.

The repayment schedule in the scheme record starts only after the course ends, and the applicant's self-surety bond turns it into a sworn commitment, backed by the family property mortgaged to the government.

• Financial Assistance
• A maximum Foreign Study Loan of ₹15,00,000/- is provided for higher education abroad.
• The loan is offered at a simple annual interest rate of 4%.
• The loan covers costs such as air tickets, registration fees, tuition fees, education fees, hostel fees, books, and other expenses associated with the first year of the course abroad.
• Disbursement Conditions
• The full loan amount of ₹15,00,000/- will be disbursed to the student in a single installment.
• The money will be deposited into the student's bank account after the submission of the original registered mortgage deed.
• Post-Selection Obligations
• After the sanction order is received, the student's parent or guardian must obtain the prescribed mortgage deed form from the District Office.
• The property presented by the student's parent/guardian or the guarantor must be registered as a mortgage in favor of the government.
• The loan repayment must begin one year after the completion of the student's study.
• The loan must be repaid in monthly or quarterly installments.
• The principal loan amount must be fully repaid within a maximum period of 10 years.
• The interest amount must be fully repaid within a maximum period of 2 years.
• The student must ensure all required documentation is completed within the prescribed time limit.

What to prepare

Documents required

The e-Samaj Kalyan EBC checklist largely matches the scheme record, with two differences that matter: the category proof is the Economically Backward Class certificate, and an I-20 is accepted alongside an offer letter or letter of acceptance as proof of admission. The form is shared with the SEBC loan, and its checklist still labels the category slot a caste certificate. The document table at the end of the application form asks for more than the record lists, including:

• the school-leaving certificate and the Aadhaar card;
• the receipt for fees already paid to the foreign college or university;
• the first page of the bank passbook or a cancelled cheque;
• a valuation report on the parent's property, and on the guarantor's property if that is to be mortgaged.

The sworn papers come as notarised annexures on stamp paper, in the prescribed formats: the applicant's self-surety bond, a joint repayment undertaking by the student and parent, the parent's consent to mortgage, the guarantor's surety bond (with a 7/12 land-record extract where the guarantor holds land) and, where needed, the guarantor's own mortgage consent. Note one inconsistency before you pay for stamp paper: the scheme page asks for one solvent guarantor, but the form's checklist has slots for two guarantors and marks the second guarantor's surety bond as required.

Step by step

How to apply

Applications run online on e-Samaj Kalyan and then on paper at the district office.

1. Register on the portal with your name as it appears on Aadhaar, your gender, date of birth, Aadhaar number, caste and mobile number; the portal sends your user ID and password by SMS, as the Citizen Help Manual explains.
2. Log in, open the Director Developing Castes Welfare services and choose Loan For Foreign Study.
3. Fill in the form, upload the documents, submit, and print the application.
4. Attach copies of the uploaded documents to the print and lodge it, in two sets, at the district office that covers you, which checks the file and sends it on to the Director.

To track the file, use the "Your Application Status" link at the foot of the scheme page, which opens the status page; it needs your application number and your date of birth in DD/MM/YYYY form. Watch it closely after submission, because a file returned for corrections is rejected on its own if the corrections do not reach the office in time.

How winners are picked

Selection process

Selection is an eligibility check handled in order of receipt, not a merit ranking. The district office verifies the file and returns it if anything is missing, then forwards it to the Director, where applications are examined in the order they arrive; the head office then asks for missing papers, sanctions or rejects, and sends the order to the district office and the student. The directorate's FAQ document adds that the government resolutions in force at the time are considered before a decision.

Each year's target also limits how many loans are sanctioned. A notice of 1 July 2021 on the e-Samaj Kalyan notice board shut the portal for the EBC foreign-study loan because the targeted number of applications had already arrived, less than four weeks after the round was advertised on 5 June 2021. When files are taken in order against a target that small, lodging a complete file early is the safer course.

Fine print

Terms & conditions

The security is a registered mortgage in the government's favour, and the papers make the family, not only the student, answerable for it. The directorate's FAQ document requires the parent's property to be worth more than the loan, with a guarantor's property mortgaged instead only if the parent's cannot be, and the application form asks for the value to be certified by a government-approved valuer.

The prescribed annexures add the conditions that bite later:

• the student and parent are jointly and individually liable, and the parent is personally liable if the student does not repay;
• the mortgaged property cannot be sold or pledged to anyone else until the loan and interest are cleared;
• a broken condition makes the whole outstanding amount payable at once with penal interest, recoverable as arrears of land revenue;
• the student must begin the course within a month of receiving the loan and must arrange any cost above the loan from elsewhere;
• a false affidavit is an offence.

Get help

Contact

The first point of contact is your district's Developing Castes Welfare office, which takes the printed application, issues the mortgage deed form and releases the money. The directorate's organisation list shows that the office is headed by a District Deputy Director in some districts, Ahmedabad and Rajkot among them, and by a Social Welfare Officer in others, such as Amreli and Kachchh-Bhuj, so ask for whichever post your district has. The directorate itself sits at Block No. 4, 3rd Floor, Dr. Jivraj Mehta Bhavan, Gandhinagar, phone +91 79 23253245.

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

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