Scholarship
Post Matric Scholarship Scheme For The Students Belonging To Scheduled Tribe For Studies In India(POST-ST)
Overview
About POST-ST
The Ministry of Tribal Affairs writes the rules for this scholarship and puts up most of the money, and then never sees your application. Your domicile State opens the portal, fixes the course fee it will cover, verifies your documents and credits your account, which is why an ST student in Mizoram and an ST student in Madhya Pradesh file for the same central scheme on two entirely different systems. The Ministry released Rs 2,598.34 crore under the scheme in 2024-25, and 18,15,598 ST students were paid that year.
The award has two components and the regulation applicable from 1 April 2022 keeps them apart: the compulsory non-refundable fees charged for the course, and a monthly stipend fixed by which of four course groups the student sits in. Those rules govern students who take fresh admission, or apply to the scheme, on or after that date.
The award is not made in Delhi. Your domicile State or Union Territory grants it on its own terms of domicile and pays it, and the Centre meets the larger part of the bill afterwards. The Ministry's own account of the scheme puts the Centre and State shares at 75:25, at 90:10 for the North Eastern and Special Category States, and at a 100% central grant for a Union Territory without a legislature. That split is why the money moves at the speed of a State treasury rather than a central one.
It is a large scheme, and a shrinking one. Payments to ST students under it peaked at 23,44,407 in 2021-22 and have fallen every year since, through 22,69,112 and 20,63,703 in 2023-24 to 18,15,598 in 2024-25, though part of that last drop is a reporting gap rather than a real one, because Rajasthan did not report for the latest year. The funds released moved much less: Rs 2,668.69 crore in FY 2023-24 against Rs 2,598.34 crore in FY 2024-25.
There is no quota of awards to compete for. In a December 2025 statement the Ministry described both the pre-matric and post-matric ST schemes as open ended, with scholarships given to all eligible students whose parental income is not more than Rs 2.5 lakh a year, and with inviting applications, verifying them, selecting beneficiaries and paying out all the State's responsibility. Cover runs from Class XI through to post graduation.
Who runs it
Provider
Ministry Of Tribal Affairs
Central Government
Centrally Sponsored Scheme
At a glance
Key details
| Level | Central |
| Scheme type | Centrally Sponsored Scheme |
| Category | Education & Learning |
| Beneficiaries | Individual |
| Benefit type | Cash |
| Application mode | Offline |
| Direct Benefit Transfer | Yes |
| Tags | Scholarship, Scheduled Tribe Students, Post Matric, Education, Study |
| Source record | myScheme, 2026-07-08official-site· 2026-07-08 |
Calendar
Important dates
The regulation's calendar is a suggestion to States, not a deadline for students, and reading it as one is a common way to miss the real window. Each State advertises its own opening and closing dates in the local language, in the leading newspapers of the State and on its own website; the regulation only asks States to make all efforts to open the portal by 1 May.
| Stage | Fresh | Renewal |
|---|---|---|
| Student registration | 1 April to 30 September | 1 April to 30 September |
| Verification of institutes completed | 30 October | 30 October |
| Verification by institute and State completed | 15 November | 30 October |
| Scholarship disbursed | 31 December | 15 November |
Mizoram's published calendar for 2026-2027 shows how much room a State has inside that. The Mizoram Scholarship Board opened its tribal scholarship on 1 July 2026, three months after the suggested start, still closed student applications on 30 September 2026, and set 31 October 2026 as the last date for institution verification.
| Cycle | Stage | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Current | Applications open | 2022-04-01 |
Who can apply
Eligibility criteria
Five conditions decide it, and the 2022 regulation sets them out together: you belong to a Scheduled Tribe notified in relation to the State or Union Territory you actually belong to, you have passed Matriculation or Higher Secondary or a higher examination of a recognised University or Board, your family income from all sources is not above Rs 2,50,000 a year, you hold an account in a Scheduled Bank in your own name linked to Aadhaar and a mobile number, and you are not drawing any other scholarship.
The income arithmetic has rules of its own that most applicants get wrong. Where both parents work, their incomes are added. Where any other member of the family earns, including a brother or sister, that income is left out entirely. Where only one parent is alive, only that parent's income counts. An orphan supported by a guardian is outside the income test altogether, and no ceiling applies. Income here means gross income from every source, with none of the exemptions and deductions the Income Tax Act allows.
Where you study is a condition, not a detail. The regulation lists the institution categories that qualify, and two of them are narrower than students expect: a private university is covered only with an A level or equivalent NAAC or NBA accreditation, and a vocational training institute only if it is affiliated to the National Council of Vocational Training. Government institutes qualify anywhere in the country. Non-government ones qualify only if your domicile State has empanelled them, whether they sit inside the State or outside it.
| The scholarships are open to nationals of India. | |
| These scholarships will be given for the study of all recognized post-matriculation post-secondary courses pursued in recognized institutions. | |
| Only those candidates who belong to Scheduled Tribes so specified in relation to the State/Union Territory to which the applicant actually belongs (i.e. permanently settled) and who have passed the Matriculation or Higher Secondary or any higher examination of a recognized University or Board of Secondary Education, will be eligible. | |
| Students studying in Class XI of Higher Secondary Schools which have a continuous school course of 12th class will not be eligible. However, in cases where the X class examination of such courses is treated as equivalent to Matriculation and students after passing the tenth class can join other courses, such students will be treated as post-matric students and will be eligible for the award of scholarships. | |
| Students pursuing post-graduate courses in medicine will be eligible if they are not allowed to practice during the period of their course. | |
| Students who after failing or passing the undergraduate/post-graduate examinations in Arts/Science/Commerce join any recognized professional or technical certificate/diploma/degree courses will be awarded scholarships if otherwise eligible. No subsequent failure will be condoned except for courses in Group ‘I’, and no further change in the course will be allowed. | |
| Students who pursue their studies through correspondence courses are also eligible. The term correspondence includes distant and continuing education. | |
| Employed students who take leave without pay for the entire duration of the course and study as full-time students will be eligible for scholarships. | |
| From the academic year 1980-81, employed students whose income combined with the income of their parents/guardians does not exceed the maximum prescribed income ceiling are made eligible for post-matric scholarships to the extent of reimbursement of all compulsorily payable non-refundable fees. | |
| All children of the same parents/guardians will be entitled to receive the benefits of the scheme. | |
| A scholarship holder under this scheme will not hold any other scholarship/stipend. | |
| If awarded any other scholarship/stipend, the student can exercise his/her option for either of the two scholarships/stipends, whichever is more beneficial to him/her, and should inform the awarding authority through the Head of the Institution about the option made. No scholarship will be paid to the students under this scheme from the date he/she accepts another scholarship/stipend. The student can, however, accept free lodging or a grant or Adhoc monetary help from the State Government or any other source for the purchase of books, and equipment or for meeting the expenses on board and | |
| lodging in addition to the scholarship amount paid under this scheme. | |
| Income Criteria | Scholarships will be paid to the students whose parents/guardians’ income from all sources does not exceed ₹ 2,00,000/- per annum. |
| Income Criteria | NOTE 1: So long as either of the parents (or husband in the case of a married unemployed girl student) is alive, only the income of the parents/husband, as the case may be, from all sources has to be taken into account and of no other member even though they may be earning. In the form of income declaration, income is to be declared on this basis. Only in the case where both the parents (or husband in the case of a married but unemployed girl student) have died, the income of the guardian who is supporting the student in his/her studies is to be taken. Such students whose parental income is affected due to the unfortunate death of one of their earning parents and resultantly comes within the income ceiling prescribed under the scheme shall become eligible for the scholarship, subject to their fulfilling other conditions of eligibility, from the month in which such sad incidence takes place. Applications for scholarships from such students can be considered even after the lapse of the last date of receipt of applications, on compassionate grounds. |
| Income Criteria | NOTE 2: House rent allowance received by the parents of a student shall be exempted from the computation of ‘income’ if the same has been permitted to be exempted for purpose of Income-tax. |
| Income Criteria | NOTE 3: Income certificate is required to be taken once only i.e. at the time of admission to courses that are continuing for more than one year. |
| Income Criteria | NOTE 4: The revised income ceilings account for Consumer Price Index for Industrial workers up to October 2009. The income Ceiling would be revised once every two years linking it with Consumer Price Index for Industrial Workers for the month of October of the year, preceding the year of revision, and will be made effective from April. |
Who cannot apply
Exclusions
Being good enough for a top institute takes you out of this scheme rather than deeper into it. A student admitted to one of the Top Class institutes named under the National Fellowship and Scholarship for Higher Education of ST students is not entitled to the post matric scholarship at all, and is registered under that scheme's scholarship component instead, so that nobody is funded twice. The regulation counts 252 such institutes; the Ministry has since published a revised list of 265, applicable from 2023-24 onwards, so what settles your case is the current list rather than the count printed in the guidelines. The transition is written into the same note: anyone already registered under the post matric scheme up to 2020-21 keeps that funding until the course ends, while students admitted after the revised guidelines were issued move across from 2021-22.
A sideways move disqualifies. Finishing one stream and starting a degree in another, B.Com after B.A. or MBBS after B.Tech, ends eligibility, and the regulation names those two examples itself.
Three more things stop the money. Only one scholarship or stipend can be held at a time, and if another is awarded the student chooses the better one and tells the awarding authority through the Head of the Institution. An MBBS student being paid during internship, and any student drawing a stipend through practical training, is not paid the scholarship for those months, because the rule reads on the remuneration rather than on the course. And lying on the form is the one failure the regulation punishes past the current year: on top of cancellation and recovery, it costs the student every future scholarship scheme as well as this one.
- Candidates who complete a course in one stream will not be eligible to take diploma/degree course of different stream. For example, student will not be eligible for scholarship for pursuing B. Com after completing B.A or BSC or MBBS after doing B.Tech.
Continuation
Renewal conditions
Renewal is a fresh filing in the same annual window, and the only real test is whether you cleared the year. The award, once made, runs from the stage at which it was given to the end of the course, subject to conduct and attendance, and is renewed from year to year provided the student completed the previous class and moved up.
Fail a year and nothing is paid until you clear that class and are promoted. Two exceptions survive that rule. Illness or another unforeseen event that kept you out of the annual examination does not end the award, provided the Head of the Institution accepts the proof and certifies that you would have passed had you sat it. The second covers the student a university pushes up under its own regulations while a junior class paper is still outstanding: the scholarship follows the class actually reached.
Renewal also runs on an earlier clock than a fresh claim. The regulation's suggested timeline closes institute and State verification for renewals by 30 October and targets disbursement by 15 November, where a fresh application is verified by 15 November and disbursed by 31 December.
Documents thin out too: the income certificate is taken once, at admission, and is valid for the whole course, so no fresh certificate is needed at renewal. Mizoram, which runs its tribal scholarship on the national portal, tells renewal applicants to skip the income and tribal certificate uploads but still submit the previous marksheet, and the hosteller certificate if they are claiming the hosteller rate.
What you get
Award & benefits
The stipend depends on the course group, and on one binary that roughly doubles the money for most students: hosteller or day scholar.
| Course Group | Hosteller, monthly | Hosteller, annual | Day scholar, monthly | Day scholar, annual |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Group I, professional degrees, PG Diploma, MPhil, PhD | 1200 | 12000 | 550 | 5500 |
| Group II, non-professional degrees such as BA, B.Sc, B.Com, MA, M.Sc, M.Com | 820 | 8200 | 530 | 5300 |
| Group III, vocational stream, ITI, three year polytechnic diplomas | 570 | 5700 | 300 | 3000 |
| Group IV, post-matriculation non-degree courses entered after Class X, such as Class XI and XII | 380 | 3800 | 230 | 2300 |
One cell in that table is worth checking against the arithmetic, because summaries of the scheme often print it wrong: the Group I day scholar rate is Rs 550 a month, which is exactly what the annual Rs 5500 works out to across the 10 months the stipend is paid.
Hostel status is decided by a rule worth reading before you claim it. Where the college cannot give you a seat in its own hostel, an approved place of residence counts as a hostel, but only if it is hired by a group of at least 5 students living together, usually with a common mess, and the Head of the Institution certifies after inspection that you could not get college accommodation.
The fee half is not a fixed number, because the regulation hands it to a State Level Fee Fixation Committee. What the Centre caps is only its own exposure for students in private sector institutes.
| Course at a private sector institute | Ceiling on Government of India support, per student per year |
|---|---|
| Engineering | Rs 2.50 lakh |
| MBBS, MS, MD | Rs 6.00 lakh |
| Any other course | Rs 1.00 lakh |
The fee ceiling, not the group you were slotted into, is where most of the money sits. On a private MBBS seat the fee side can run to Rs 6.00 lakh a year while the stipend stops at Rs 12000, so what your State's fee committee has approved for your course matters far more than which group you were slotted into.
A State is free to pay above those ceilings, and above the stipend rates, out of its own funds; the extra is accounted for separately on the State portal. A Divyangjan student is paid an additional stipend of Rs 800 per month as a hosteller, Rs 9600 a year, or Rs 600 a month as a day scholar, Rs 7200 a year, on a disability certified by a competent medical authority of the State, and the same allowance reaches students who are leprosy cured or living with sickle cell anaemia or thalassemia. The stipend itself runs from 1 April or the month of admission, whichever is later, to the month the examinations end, for a maximum of 10 months in the year.
- Stipend: The student will be entitled to stipend as per rates listed below.
- CoursesHostellersDay ScholarBachelor, Master Degree, MPhil/PhD degree leading to Degree, PG Diploma, in professional courses in various streams Monthly: 1200 ; Annually: 12000Monthly: 500 ; Annually: 5500All non-professional recognized courses leading to a Bachelor, Master Degree, MPhil/PhD degree not covered under Group I in Arts, Science and Commerce like BA/B.Sc/B.Com or MA/MSc/M.Com Monthly: 820 ; Annually: 8200Monthly: 530; Annually: 5300Vocational stream, ITI courses, 3 year diploma courses in Polytechnics, etc.Monthly: 570; Annually: 5700Monthly: 300; Annually: 3000All post-matriculation level non-degree courses for which entrance qualification is High School (Class X), e.g. senior secondary certificate (class XI and XII).Monthly: 380; Annually: 3800Monthly: 230; Annually: 2300
- Note 1: It needs to be clarified that the stipend is a sort of incentive provided to a student for pursuing a particular course and in no way meant to provide for reimbursement of boarding and lodging charges like mess, hostel or other similar charges.
- Note 2: Additional Disability Allowance: -In addition to stipend provided above, an additional Stipend of Rs. 800/-per month (Rs. 9600 annually) will be given to the Divyangjan student who is hosteller and Rs.600 (Rs 7200 annually) to Day scholar. The disability as defined under the relevant ‘Disabilities Act’ has to be certified by competent medical authority of the State Govt./UT Administration. The provisions of Disability allowance will also apply to leprosy-cured and students having sickle cell Anemia or Thalassemia as notified by Ministry of Social Justice and empowerment
- Note 3: Under “National fellowship & Scholarship for Higher Education of ST students” Scheme [Top class Scholarship], MoTA is providing Scholarships to students for pursuing graduation and post-graduation courses in Top Class Institutes (currently 252) across India. To avoid duplicity, students pursuing courses in such Institutes will not be entitled for benefit under Post Matric Scholarship. Scholarship holder under this scheme can hold only one scholarship/stipend at a time.
- A centrally sponsored scholarship scheme by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs for students from scheduled tribes pursuing post-matriculation or post-secondary stages to enable them to complete their education.
- Components of the Scheme: The scholarship has two components: Component 1: Payment of compulsory fees charged by educational institutions subject to the limit fixed by the concerned State.
- Component 2: Payment of Maintenance amount varying from ₹230/- to ₹1200/- per month, depending upon the course of study pursued by the student.
What to prepare
Documents required
The revised regulation asks for an Aadhaar number, a domicile certificate, scanned copies of the certificates and degrees for every examination passed, the last qualified marks, an ST certificate issued by the competent authority of the State or Union Territory, a family income certificate, a disability certificate where it applies, and a passport size photograph.
One line in that list changed the old practice completely. Self-declarations and affidavits of self-assessment of income are not acceptable, and each State has to notify a competent authority that issues income certificates. Who that authority is varies. Mizoram names the Deputy Commissioner or a first class magistrate, records that the Ministry does not accept a Village Council or Local Council certificate, and will not take an income certificate unless it was issued in 2026 for the 2026-2027 session.
Where a State already issues these certificates online, it may link its portal to DigiLocker so the documents are fetched automatically instead of uploaded. Mizoram also expects the hard copy of the form and the documents behind it to reach the institution, and warns that an application whose papers never arrive cannot be verified.
Step by step
How to apply
You apply to your domicile State, and studying elsewhere does not change that. Every State and Union Territory is required to run its own online platform for applications and DBT disbursement, and a State without one may opt to use the National Scholarship Portal instead. A student from one State studying in another submits to the competent authority in the home State, can join any Government institute anywhere, and among non-government institutes can join only an empanelled one.
That is why the route genuinely differs by State, and why looking for this scheme on the national portal's central list is a wasted afternoon. The National Scholarship Portal's list of Central Sector schemes for 2026-27 carries exactly one Ministry of Tribal Affairs entry, the National Fellowship and Scholarship for Higher Education of ST students, open from 01-06-2026 with student applications closing 31-10-2026. The post matric scholarship is not on it; it reaches that portal only through the State schemes side, and only for the States that opted in. Mizoram is one of them and routes its tribal pre and post matric applications to scholarships.gov.in under its own State dates. Madhya Pradesh is not: its tribal students go through MPTAASC, the department's own automation system, where a beneficiary profile has to be registered before any scheme form opens.
Tracking the application means watching three rungs, not one. The Institute Nodal Officer verifies first, and the institute must hold a valid AISHE, U-DISE, NCVT or SCVT code to do it. The District and then the State Nodal Officer verify after that. At every rung the application can be verified, rejected, or marked defective, and the reason has to be displayed to you, so a defective status is a repairable state and not a refusal. The regulation puts two duties on the student: act on the messages the portal sends, and follow up with the institute before the verification deadline rather than after it.
Payment has its own trail. The national portal carries an Application Status view and a Track Your Payment view alongside the one time registration and application forms. Once money has moved, PFMS Know Your Payment will confirm a credit against the bank name and account number, with no portal login. On the Ministry's own DBT system the scheme is listed as a Centrally Sponsored Scheme under the code BVOBC, which is how it is identified in fund and beneficiary reporting.
- 1Apply offline
The official links on this page lead to the application portal.
How winners are picked
Selection process
Selection under this scheme is a clerical exercise rather than a contest. The Ministry treats it as open ended and pays every eligible ST student, so verification does the work a merit list would do elsewhere, and what decides your case is whether three officers agree that your documents, your course and your institution qualify.
The State does its own checking before it awards anything: registration, affiliation and accreditation of the institution, the courses it offers, and the number of seats approved for each course. States are also required to keep a complete beneficiary database across the various scholarship schemes so that the same student is not funded twice. And the State is entitled to act on what that checking turns up: a fact stated wrongly or misrepresented at this stage ends eligibility and debars the applicant from anything the scheme pays.
Fine print
Terms & conditions
A delayed disbursement is not the student's problem to absorb. The regulation bars a non-government institute from forcing a student to pay the fee because the State has been slow, makes the State responsible for ensuring the student still attends classes and sits examinations, and lets a State take that undertaking from institutes when it empanels them.
How the money reaches you is also a State decision. The State may credit the entire amount to the student by DBT, or send the tuition fee to the institute and only the stipend to the student.
A scholarship already awarded can be withdrawn. Changing the subject of the course or the institution of study without the State Government's prior approval is a ground for cancellation and recovery. Discontinuing the course mid-year makes the amount refundable at the State's discretion. Misconduct, or irregular attendance without permission, reported by the Head of the Institution, lets the sanctioning authority cancel, stop or withhold payment.
The 2022 revision was written not to strand anyone mid-course. Existing beneficiaries get the revised rates from the date the revision took effect, while a student already enrolled keeps the fee the State had fixed at the time of admission for the rest of the course. The provisions can be changed at any time with the approval of the Minister of Tribal Affairs, and States have been advised to shift gradually towards institutions that rank high on the NIRF.
Get help
Contact
The office that can actually answer your case is the one that awarded the scholarship, and that is your own State. Every State and Union Territory is required to run a dedicated helpdesk and grievance redressal mechanism under its Scholarship Division, to help with registration and application forms and with queries on fees and institution details, and to escalate what it cannot solve. Where a State publishes those details they are specific to it: Madhya Pradesh, for instance, lists a tribal helpline on 1800-2333-951 and helpdesk.tribal@mp.gov.in.
The Ministry's own DBT portal has a grievance module, but the Ministry describes it as a channel for officers registered on the portal to raise technical queries and issues about fund release, data uploads and information showing wrongly on the dashboard. It is not a route for a student chasing an individual payment.
Source
Official links
Questions
POST-ST – FAQ
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.
References
Sources
- released Rs 2,598.34 crore under the scheme in 2024-25 – pib.gov.in
- regulation applicable from 1 April 2022 – scholarships.gov.in
- Ministry's own account of the scheme – tribal.nic.in
- tells renewal applicants – msb.mizoram.gov.in
- MPTAASC – tribal.mp.gov.in
- PFMS Know Your Payment – pfms.nic.in
- code BVOBC – dbttribal.gov.in
- Post Matric Merit Scholarship for Tribal Students – megeducation.gov.in
- myScheme (Government of India) – myscheme.gov.in