Pre-Matric Scholarship For Scheduled Tribe Students Studying In Classes 9th & 10th(PMSSTSSCNT)

Overview

About PMSSTSSCNT

Assam paid this award to 8075 Scheduled Tribe students in classes 9 and 10 during the 2024-25 financial year, up from 4353 the year before, on central funds of Rs 1 crore (Annexure I, Ministry of Tribal Affairs reply in Lok Sabha, 24 July 2025). The same annexure shows Assam paying 77350 ST students at the post-matric stage that year on Rs 79.71 crore, so the school-stage award reaches roughly a tenth of the students the college-stage one does. Nothing in the eligibility test explains that gap: it carries no marks bar and no ranking. What decides a class 9 file is a certificate, a bank account, and a closing date Assam fixes for itself.

This page is about Assam's version of the award, and the difference is not cosmetic. The rulebook belongs to the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, which titles it Pre-Matric Scholarship for Scheduled Tribe Students Studying in Classes IX and X and marks it a Centrally Sponsored Scheme running from 2021-22 to 2025-26 (scheme guidelines). The office that invites applications, checks them and pays is the Department of Tribal Affairs (Plain), Government of Assam.

Where that line falls settles the question families most often get wrong. Replying to unstarred questions in the Lok Sabha, the Ministry stated that the pre-matric and post-matric ST scholarships are implemented through the respective State or UT, and that inviting applications, verification, selection of beneficiaries and disbursement of the scholarship amount is the State's responsibility, with the Ministry releasing central share funds against State proposals (Ministry of Tribal Affairs, 24 July 2025). No national last date exists for this award. Assam sets one, and the state next door sets a different one for the identical scheme.

The money behind it is split 90:10 in Assam's favour rather than the 75:25 that applies across most of the country. The guidelines fix the Government of India contribution at 75 percent and the state contribution at 25 percent, then raise the central share to 90 percent and drop the state share to 10 percent for North East and hilly states (guidelines, funding pattern).

Nationally the award is not rationed by slot. It reached 910043 students in 2024-25 against central releases of Rs 163.69 crore, and 929767 students the year before against Rs 308.60 crore (Annexure I). Its budget line sits inside the umbrella Programme for Development of Scheduled Tribes, where the Ministry moved the sub-scheme from 2022-23 onward, and carries Rs 313.79 crore for 2025-26 (Notes on Demands for Grants, Demand No. 100).

Who runs it

Provider

At a glance

Key details

Calendar

Important dates

The dates that bind an Assam application are published on the scheme's own card on the portal, and the stages after the closing date carry as much weight as the closing date itself.

The Ministry's own calendar is earlier and looser than what Assam runs. It asks states to make all efforts to open the portal for applications by 1 April, complete verification of institutes by 31 August, complete institute and state verification by 30 September and disburse by 31 October, then calls those timelines suggestive in the same paragraph (guidelines, announcement and timeline). Assam's published dates are the ones an Assam family works to.

Who can apply

Eligibility criteria

Category and income carry the whole test, and marks are not part of it. Recognition as Scheduled Tribe has to be in relation to the State or Union Territory of domicile, and household income from all sources has to stay at or below Rs 2,50,000 a year (guidelines, conditions of eligibility). No percentage bar, no entrance test and no competition against other applicants appears anywhere in the conditions.

Domicile, not the school's address, routes the application. Where the two differ, the guidelines send the claim home: the domicile state makes the award and its competent authority takes the form, not the host state's (guidelines, selection of candidates). An Assam-domiciled ST student boarding in Meghalaya applies to Assam; a Nagaland-domiciled student at a Guwahati school does not.

The income arithmetic is what households get wrong, in both directions. Where both parents work, their incomes are added. An elder sibling's pay, or that of any earner in the household who is not a parent, stays out of the sum. If one parent has died, only the surviving parent's earnings count. The test drops away entirely for an orphan supported by a guardian. And income here means gross income from all sources with none of the exemptions or deductions the Income Tax Act allows, so a figure copied off a tax return after deductions is the wrong figure.

Which office to approach is worth settling before the paperwork starts. The department behind this scheme is named Tribal Affairs (Plain), and the directorate's own citizen-service listings are written for Scheduled Tribes (Plain) students of Assam (Directorate of Tribal Affairs (Plain), Assam), while the national portal's scheme card carries no such qualifier and is listed for ST students of Assam (schemes listed for the State of Assam). A family whose certificate was issued under a different administrative head is better off checking the directorate's own pages than assuming the two labels mean the same thing.

Who cannot apply

Exclusions

A rejection recorded by a nodal officer during verification is the hardest stop on this list. The guidelines say an application marked rejected will not be considered for further processing on the portal, in the states that sit on it (guidelines, selection of candidates). Wrong or misrepresented facts do worse than sink one year, because the penalty in the guidelines is loss of eligibility plus liability to debarment from the scheme itself.

Repeating a class costs a year of the award outright. Each class is paid for once, so a student held back in class 9 draws nothing for the repeated year and picks the money up again on promotion.

The bar on holding another scholarship is the scheme's own, and it is tighter than the portal's. This scheme's condition is that the student should not be getting any other scholarship. The portal's rule from academic year 2026-27 is looser, letting a student hold one merit-based scheme alongside one or more welfare-based ones, each judged on its own eligibility criteria (National Scholarship Portal announcements), and Assam's ST pre-matric listing is itself flagged welfare-based (schemes listed for the State of Assam). Where the two differ, the scheme condition governs the award.

The guidelines then hand the applicant a short list of things to get right, each of which is enough on its own to stall a file: an account that has gone dormant, an account not held in the student's or a parent's name or not seeded with Aadhaar and a mobile number, an uploaded document or photograph that is not legible, and a mobile number changed mid-cycle without being recorded (guidelines, selection of candidates).

Continuation

Renewal conditions

Renewal is a promotion, not a second application against the field. A pass in class 9 carries the award straight into class 10, and the only other things it rides on are conduct and an attendance record that stays regular (guidelines, duration and renewal of awards).

The second year is lighter on paper, and deliberately so. One income certificate covers both years: it is produced when the student is admitted to class 9 and holds good for class 10 as well, so a household is not sent back to a certifying authority twelve months later. Where a parent draws a salary, that certificate reports the financial year before the one being applied for.

Filing the class 10 claim as a fresh application instead of a renewal gets it rejected outright, and the FAQ that Assam's scheme card links says so in terms (FAQ linked from Assam's scheme card). A class 10 student renews on the application ID registered the previous year.

Assam publishes one set of dates covering the cycle rather than a separate renewal calendar. The central PM-USP college scholarship, by contrast, runs a renewal window the portal announces on dates of its own (portal announcements). A renewing class 10 student in Assam therefore works to the same closing date as a fresh class 9 applicant (schemes listed for the State of Assam).

What you get

Award & benefits

The scholarship is paid for 10 months of the academic year, the book grant once, and the disability allowance across all twelve. Whether the student boards changes every figure in the table.

Those rates replaced a much older sheet, and the old one has not stopped circulating. The 2012 version of the scheme paid a day scholar Rs 150 a month and a hosteller Rs 350, against a ceiling of Rs 2,00,000 on family income (2012 guidelines as published by the Assam directorate).

The disability allowance reaches further than the word suggests, and it is the component most often left unclaimed. The guidelines extend it to leprosy-cured students and to students with sickle cell anaemia or Thalassemia alongside Divyangjan students, on a certificate from a competent medical authority of the State Government or UT Administration, and it is the one component that runs for all twelve months rather than ten.

Payment reaches the student, not the school. The Ministry's stated preference is Direct Benefit Transfer using the Aadhaar Enabled Payment System, and the Lok Sabha reply records that State Governments and UT Administrations disburse the amount to every eligible ST student's bank account through DBT mode (Ministry of Tribal Affairs, 24 July 2025).

• Scholarship for 10 Months
• Day Scholars receive a scholarship of ₹225/- monthly (₹2,250/- annually).
• Hostelers receive ₹525/- monthly (₹5,250/- annually).
• Books and Ad Hoc Grant
• Day Scholars receive a lump sum grant of ₹750/-, and Hostelers receive a grant of ₹1,000/-.
• Additional Disability Allowance
• Divyangjan students, leprosy-cured students, and students having sickle cell anemia or Thalassemia receive an additional grant paid for all twelve months.
• Hosteler students receive ₹800/- monthly (₹9,600/- annually), and Day Scholars receive ₹600/- monthly (₹7,200/- annually).
• Benefits are distributed directly to the student's bank account through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT), preferably using the Aadhaar Enabled Payment System.
• The award once made will continue, subject to good conduct and regularity in attendance.
• The scholarship will be renewed for Class X after the student successfully passes Class IX.
• If a student has to repeat a class, they will not receive the scholarship for the same class twice.

What to prepare

Documents required

Assam decides how the three certificates that carry the file are issued. The guidelines leave the procedure for the ST certificate, the family income certificate and the disability certificate to the State or UT, along with the authority competent to sign each (guidelines, documents required). Where Assam issues any of them online, the guidelines allow DigiLocker to sit between the issuing system and the scholarship portal, which then fetches the certificate directly instead of asking the family to upload it.

A self-declaration will not do for income, and neither will an affidavit of self-assessment; the guidelines put the State under a duty to notify a competent issuing authority precisely so that neither can be substituted. The other quiet rejection is physical: every uploaded document and the photograph have to be legible and of adequate resolution, which is what turns a phone snapshot of a folded certificate into a defect notice.

Students claiming the disability allowance have one step to finish somewhere else first. Consent has to be recorded at the UDID site, where the student signs in and agrees to their UDID details being shared, and until that is done the scholarship form cannot be submitted at all (National Scholarship Portal announcements).

Step by step

How to apply

Assam runs this award on the National Scholarship Portal rather than a state portal of its own, and the Specifications link on its scheme card points straight at the Ministry's guidelines (schemes listed for the State of Assam). Applications for academic year 2026-27 have been open on the portal since 1 June 2026, and no form goes in without a One Time Registration number, generated off an Aadhaar number or an Aadhaar enrolment number and required since academic year 2024-25 (portal announcements).

Assam's own window opens later than the portal does. The state listing shows the ST pre-matric scheme open from 6 July 2026, with student applications accepted till 6 October 2026 (schemes listed for the State of Assam). The directorate adds that it advertises the pre-matric and post-matric ST scholarships in print and electronic media tentatively from August to December (Apply for Scholarship, Directorate of Tribal Affairs (Plain), Assam), which means the newspaper notice can appear well after the portal has started taking forms, and in the later months of that spread it can appear after the portal has stopped taking them.

Filing does not have to happen at home. The portal's services are available at Common Service Centres for a fixed Rs 30 per candidate inclusive of taxes, and that single charge covers the sequence from generating the reference number and the biometric authentication through the OTR to the completed application form (portal announcements).

What Happens Between 6 October and 15 December

Assam's calendar does not end when applications close, and the two months after it are where files are actually decided. On the same listing, defective application verification and institute verification both run till 6 November 2026, and district, state and ministry nodal officer verification runs till 15 December 2026 (schemes listed for the State of Assam).

A defect is not a rejection. When an application is marked defective the guidelines put it on the applicant to rectify the errors, comply with the remarks recorded against the file, and act on the messages the portal pushes out, which is why the mobile number on the form has to stay live all cycle. The same paragraph tells applicants to follow up with the institute for verification before the deadline rather than assume the school will get to it, and separately charges the district or state nodal officer with monitoring pendency at institute level so that verification is not left to a last-minute rush.

Progress and money answer to two different systems. Where the application has reached is visible after a student login on the scholarship portal. The payment is traced somewhere else entirely, on the Public Financial Management System, which runs a Know Your Payment lookup against a bank account and carries a separate Track NSP Payments service (Public Financial Management System). If neither has moved once Assam's verification dates have passed, the escalation is a grievance on the portal and the directorate in Guwahati, not the school office.

How winners are picked

Selection process

Nobody is ranked and nobody is shortlisted. The Ministry calls both ST scholarship schemes open ended, with scholarships given to every eligible student whose parental income is not more than Rs 2.5 lakh a year (Ministry of Tribal Affairs, 24 July 2025), so what the guidelines file under selection is verification, run at three levels.

The first level belongs to the school. Every participating institution nominates an institute nodal officer, who registers on the portal with documents issued by the institute, and the school itself has to hold a valid AISHE, U-DISE, NCVT or SCVT code. That officer checks the form against the uploaded documents, keeps the physical copies for the district, state or ministry officer to call for, and can verify the application, mark it defective or reject it with a reason recorded so that it can be shown back to the student. District and state nodal officers hold the same three options at the second and third levels, and the guidelines add a duty of their own on top: to monitor overall pendency at institute level.

For Assam the state end of that chain is also the funding end. Central assistance reaches the state in two or more instalments and only on conditions: the previous year's amount utilised with a utilisation certificate filed, the expenditure actually reflected in PFMS, the state's own matching share contributed, and the portal opened for online applications. A delay in a student's account is as likely to sit somewhere in that chain as in the school's inbox.

Fine print

Terms & conditions

Continuation is conditional on conduct and attendance rather than on marks, and the state carries a de-duplication duty behind it: it has to maintain a complete beneficiary database spanning the other scholarship schemes so that one student is not paid twice over. Where funds are found to have been misused, the enquiry falls to the State or UT within a fixed time limit, and the outcome goes back to the Ministry.

The stale file to watch for is on Assam's own website. The directorate's document library still publishes the 2012 central guidelines for this scheme, under the heading Guidelines for Pre Matric Scholarship to ST Students (Classes IX and X) (Directorate document listing). A parent who reads that file will take away an income ceiling of Rs 2,00,000 and monthly rates of Rs 150 and Rs 350, all of which the current guidelines superseded (the file itself). The version the portal links from Assam's own scheme card is the current one, and the Ministry may revise what the scheme provides whenever its competent authority signs off on the change.

Get help

Contact

Guwahati is where this scheme's paperwork ends up. The published address is Satrinivash Path, Rukmini Nagar, Guwahati-6; the officer listed as Director, Tribal Affairs (Plain), Assam is Shri Udayaditya Gogoi, ACS; and the email on record for that office is directorate-tap@assam.gov.in (Directorate contact page). The Department of Tribal Affairs (Plain) itself sits in the Assam Secretariat at Dispur.

Portal faults take a separate route. Every State and UT has to run a helpdesk and a grievance mechanism of its own for first-level help, escalating the critical cases to the state or portal team (guidelines, helpdesk and grievance redressal), and a grievance can also be lodged directly on the National Scholarship 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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