New Akanksha Scheme (Higher Education Loan) (GGDC)(NASHELGGDC)

Overview

About NASHELGGDC

The New Akanksha Scheme (Higher Education Loan) is a repayable loan, not a scholarship, and only Rabari and Bharwad students can take it. The Gujarat Gopalak Development Corporation (GGDC), which works under Gujarat's Social Justice and Empowerment Department, runs it for members of these two communities who hold a seat in a professional course. The corporation's own online form carries the scheme under its Gujarati title, "નવી આકાંક્ષા ઉચ્ચ શૈક્ષણિક યોજના" (GGDC online application form).

GGDC exists for exactly this group. Its introduction describes the Rabari and Bharwad as socially and educationally backward castes whose hereditary work of rearing and tending livestock and selling milk kept them behind other communities. The state later converted the older Gopalak board into a corporation so that it could draw finance directly from the national corporation for backward classes (GGDC, Introduction).

What a student gets is money for fees and living costs through the course. What the family takes on is a debt that GGDC recovers with interest after the course, and, for any loan above one lakh rupees, two property-owning guarantors and a charge on property in the corporation's name (GGDC, FAQ).

Who runs it

Provider

At a glance

Key details

Calendar

Important dates

The education loan has no closing date, because GGDC keeps its portal open for it throughout the year (GGDC loan portal). The corporation's other loans open only during an advertised window. In 2026 that window ran from 11/06/2026 to 10/07/2026, dates the portal writes day first, so June to July (GGDC loan portal).

GGDC's FAQ explains why lending follows a yearly cycle at all: loans are advertised only after the state government and the National Backward Classes Finance and Development Corporation (NBCFDC) release funds and the annual plan is approved (GGDC, FAQ). The portal also warns that an earlier year's application left without completed loan documents has been rejected, and a fresh application is needed (GGDC loan portal).

Who can apply

Eligibility criteria

The income and age tests depend on which page you read. The myScheme record reproduced below, captured on 8 July 2026, prints a lower income ceiling and a wider age band than the pages GGDC itself runs, and it is GGDC, the lender, whose pages an application is judged against.

On GGDC's scheme page, as read in September 2026, the income certificate has to show "આવક મર્યાદા રૂા.૫.૦૦ લાખ", a ceiling of five lakh rupees (GGDC, New Akanksha scheme page). The online application form states that ceiling against the family's total yearly income, and the loan portal's notice board applies the same five-lakh limit to every GGDC scheme (GGDC online application form; GGDC loan portal).

Age is capped lower than the record suggests. A student has to be between seventeen and thirty-five, "ઉમર વર્ષ ૧૭ થી ૩૫", proved by the school-leaving certificate (GGDC, New Akanksha scheme page). The online form repeats that band beside its date-of-birth field (GGDC online application form), so a student past thirty-five cannot lean on the record's upper limit, which is ten years higher.

GGDC's FAQ page answers for all of the corporation's loans, livestock and vehicle loans included, and it still gives applicants aged "૨૧ થી ૪૫", twenty-one to forty-five, with a family income up to "રૂા.૩.૦૦ લાખ", three lakh rupees (GGDC, FAQ). For a student, the education scheme page, the form and the portal notice are the lender's current word, and they agree with one another.

The seat itself has to come through the admission committee the government prescribes (GGDC, New Akanksha scheme page). The same page asks that the qualifying examination was passed with "ઓછામાં ઓછા ૫૦ %", at least fifty per cent. GGDC's FAQ adds that an Admission Committee for Professional Courses (ACPC) letter is compulsory and that the course must be recognised by AICTE, UGC or the Medical Council of India, naming engineering, MCA, MBA and medicine (GGDC, FAQ).

On the form, the caste field offers only SEBC, followed by a sub-caste choice, so the caste certificate has to show the student within that category (GGDC online application form).

Who cannot apply

Exclusions

GGDC's portal turns away several applicants that the myScheme record never mentions. Anyone who has already borrowed from the corporation, still owes it instalments, or has stood as guarantor for another applicant at any corporation is told not to apply (GGDC loan portal). The same notice says an application is cancelled when the mobile number given is switched off or is not the applicant's own.

A family gets one running loan at a time: GGDC's FAQ says no other family member can borrow until the first person's loan is fully repaid. It also says a borrower may take a loan from only one of the department's Developing Castes Welfare corporations (GGDC, FAQ).

Continuation

Renewal conditions

There is no yearly renewal in the scholarship sense. The student applies once for the whole course, and the form asks for the admission fee, tuition fee and hostel costs for the entire course, not for one year (GGDC online application form). Disbursal waits on two things, per GGDC's FAQ: a complete loan file and money in the corporation's hands, after which the transfer goes by RTGS or NEFT (GGDC, FAQ). GGDC's pages do not publish a year-by-year release schedule.

What you get

Award & benefits

GGDC's scheme page offers "વધુમાં વધુ રૂા.૧૫.૦૦ લાખ સુધીનું ધિરાણ", lending of at most fifteen lakh rupees (GGDC, New Akanksha scheme page). Gujarat's state scheme directory lists the Rabari and Bharwad loan for higher studies with the same ceiling, "લોનની મહત્તમ મર્યાદા રૂા.૧૫.૦૦ લાખ", a maximum loan of Rs 15 lakh (Mari Yojana, Government of Gujarat). The benefit is credit, not money in hand.

GGDC's FAQ describes its loans as carrying a nominal rate of "૪ થી ૬ ટકાના નજીવા વ્યાજદરે" (four to six per cent) and says no subsidy is available on them (GGDC, FAQ). That range is written for every GGDC loan, not for education alone, and the myScheme record below is no tie-breaker: its benefits list and its own FAQ answer quote women two different rates. Get the student rate confirmed by the district office before the hypothecation and loan agreement is signed, since the student and both guarantors put their names to every page of it (GGDC loan portal, scheme and document details).

GGDC's own pages also say nothing about the beneficiary's share of the cost that the record lists under benefits, so whether a Rabari or Bharwad student has to fund part of the course is a question to put to the district office before counting on the full amount.

The amount a student asks for is the sum entered in the form's "કુલ લોન ની જરૂરિયાત" (total loan requirement) block, built from the whole-course costing the college puts on its letterhead (GGDC online application form; GGDC, New Akanksha scheme page). The same form also asks what the family can show as security, such as land, a house, LIC policies or KVP certificates, and whether anyone in the family holds a government or private job.

• Educational Loan Details: 1. Loan Amount: 2. Interest Rate: 5% for female students
• 4% for male students
• 3. Contribution: 95% contribution from the Corporation/State Government,
• 5% from the beneficiary

What to prepare

Documents required

Paperwork reaches GGDC twice: a light set with the online form, and the security file once the loan is approved in principle. The table follows GGDC's own pages stage by stage, including the security papers that the record's list below leaves out.

Step by step

How to apply

Applications are online only, at GGDC's loan portal (GGDC loan portal). GGDC's how-to guide sets out the order:

1. Apply Online. Write down the number shown after you submit; GGDC uses it as both the application number and the confirmation number.
2. Edit Application, if anything needs correcting.
3. Upload Photo and signature.
4. Upload Document, as scanned PDFs.
5. Confirm Application. Until this is pressed GGDC does not treat the form as an application, and nothing can be changed afterwards.
6. Print Application.

Following Up on the Portal After You Apply

GGDC's status page lists each of its loan schemes: pick "Educational Scheme", type the application number, add the date of birth and submit (GGDC, application status). Forgotten the number? The Know Application No page finds it once you choose the education scheme and give the mobile number and birth date used on the form (GGDC, find application number).

Repayments can be made online through Quick Pay on the portal's home page (GGDC loan portal). GGDC's FAQ adds that instalments can also be paid with the corporation's bank book at the banks it has designated, Bank of Baroda, Axis Bank and HDFC Bank among them, or through a bank payment gateway, and that a record of instalments already paid comes from the corporation's office (GGDC, FAQ).

How winners are picked

Selection process

GGDC's FAQ has its staff split the files by district into a "ક્ષતિરહિત" (flawless) list and a "ક્ષતિવાળી" (flawed) one, and the beneficiary selection committee headed by GGDC's chairman then rules on them against the eligibility rules. An education loan leaves the committee's hands at the last step, because sanctioning or refusing it is the Managing Director's power (GGDC, FAQ).

The same FAQ says widows, deserted women, applicants with disabilities and lower-income applicants get priority, and that preliminary approvals are spread across districts in proportion to the two communities' population there, within the funds available (GGDC, FAQ). An approved applicant is sent the loan documents to complete, and the money moves only after they are back.

Fine print

Terms & conditions

The security GGDC takes is the condition that decides most applications. Its FAQ ties the full security set to loans "રૂા.૧.૦૦ લાખથી વધુ" (above one lakh rupees). Two people who own immovable property must stand guarantor, a charge equal to one and a half times the loan is registered in the corporation's name on the borrower's or a guarantor's property, and the borrower hands over ten signed cheques drawn on a personal account at a nationalised bank (GGDC, FAQ).

The portal's document notes spell out where the charge is recorded: a property card through the City Survey Superintendent in towns, the Sub-Registrar's index in municipal corporation areas, and for rural farmland an entry made through the Mamlatdar's e-Dhara office (GGDC loan portal, scheme and document details). A charge that a Talati-cum-Mantri has noted on the village assessment is not accepted, under a Development Commissioner's letter the portal quotes. GGDC's FAQ still names that Talati-signed assessment as the proof for a charge on a house (GGDC, FAQ), so where the two pages disagree, the portal's note, which cites the government instruction, is the one to follow.

The clock on repayment starts at the earlier of two events, a job after the course or "છ માસ" (six months) from its end, and GGDC then collects the loan in "૬૦-હપ્તામાં", sixty instalments (GGDC, FAQ). The FAQ also says GGDC will consider moving a charge to another property during a running loan if the borrower has kept up the instalments.

Get help

Contact

GGDC's head office is at Block No. 7, third floor, Dr. Jivraj Mehta Bhavan, Gandhinagar, telephone +91 79 23256494, email md-ggdcl@gujarat.gov.in (GGDC, Contact). The same page lists the district offices of the Deputy Director (Developing Castes Welfare), and the portal tells applicants to go to the office in their home district for detailed questions on any GGDC loan (GGDC loan portal). The portal's administrative helpline answers on government working days from 10:30 AM to 2:00 PM and 2:30 PM to 6:10 PM (GGDC loan portal).

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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