Sant Sohirobanath Ambiye Dnyanvruddhi Shishyavrutti- Bursary Scheme(SSADS-BS)

Overview

About SSADS-BS

The Sant Sohirobanath Ambiye Dnyanvruddhi Shishyavrutti, known across Goa simply as the Bursary Scheme, gives back part of the college fees a student has already paid. It is not a stipend and it never reaches the college. You pay the institution, then claim the eligible part of those receipts, and the approved amount lands in your own bank account.

The rules in force today are not the ones the scheme started with. A 2024 notification, dated 17 September 2024 and printed in the Official Gazette, Series I No. 30, of 24 October 2024, rewrote the scheme and withdrew the two 2014 notifications that had governed it until then (Official Gazette, Government of Goa, Series I No. 30, 2024). That same text states the aim as lifting Goa's Gross Enrolment Ratio in higher education to around 45 from 35.8. The 32.2 baseline still quoted in some places comes from the original 2014 text (Official Gazette, Series I No. 48, 2014).

The Directorate of Higher Education owns the scheme, but the Goa Education Development Corporation (GEDC), a state body set up under the Goa Education Development Corporation Act 2003, runs it and has done so since 2014 (GEDC, Bursary Schemes). The 2024 notification keeps it that way, stating that the scheme "will be operated through" GEDC (Official Gazette, Series I No. 30, 2024). The student it is written for studied in Goa, is now in a full-time diploma, degree or postgraduate course at a Goa institution, and comes from a family earning under Rs 5 lakh a year.

Who runs it

Provider

At a glance

Key details

Calendar

Important dates

The window moves from year to year, so the GEDC notice is the date to trust. The 2025-26 round ran from 5 May 2026 to 19 June 2026 (GEDC, Bursary Schemes), announced through a Government of Goa press note dated 30 April 2026 (Department of Information and Publicity, Goa).

The two latest rounds both came after the academic years they paid for: the combined round for 2023-24 and 2024-25 closed in March 2025, and the 2025-26 round opened in May 2026 (GEDC, Bursary Scheme; GEDC, Bursary Schemes). A claim can therefore be filed many months after the fees were paid, so keep every fee and book receipt from the year you mean to claim for.

Who can apply

Eligibility criteria

The test that trips people up is where you studied before, not where your family lives. Under the 2024 notification, a diploma student must have passed Std X at an institution in Goa; a degree student needs Std X and Std XII (or a diploma) from Goa; a postgraduate student needs all of that plus a graduation from Goa (Official Gazette, Series I No. 30, 2024). The one relaxation written into this schooling test applies only at postgraduate level: a degree from a Central University, NIT, IIT, IIM or a similar institution is accepted in place of a graduation from Goa.

Domicile is not part of the test. The portal's own guidance says a student whose parents live outside Goa can still apply if the Goa schooling conditions are met, with the parents' income counted wherever they live (Bursary portal FAQ).

The income line is strict in its wording. Total family income from all sources, both parents or the guardian together, must be less than Rs 5,00,000 a year, so a certificate showing exactly that figure falls outside (Bursary portal FAQ). The course itself must be full time, no longer than 5 years, and run by an institution in Goa that is affiliated to Goa University or recognised by the Directorate of Higher Education, the Directorate of Technical Education or another government-approved authority (Official Gazette, Series I No. 30, 2024).

Who cannot apply

Exclusions

myScheme publishes no exclusion list for this bursary, but the 2024 notification closes several doors that catch applicants in practice (Official Gazette, Series I No. 30, 2024):

• A second fee benefit from government. A student drawing a similar benefit under any other Goa or Government of India scheme or scholarship, a Goa fee concession included, cannot also draw the bursary. The notification lets the student choose which scheme to take the benefit from, not stack the bursary on top of another.
• GEDC's own loan. Running the bursary through GEDC is meant to let the corporation cross-check that a beneficiary of its Interest Free Education Loan Scheme does not also claim here, and the reverse.
• Study outside Goa, or schooling outside Goa. Both the institution and the earlier qualifying study have to be in Goa, subject only to the postgraduate relaxation described under Eligibility.
• Part-time study and long programmes. Anything that does not require full-time attendance, or runs past 5 years, is outside the scheme.

Fee heads that are neither on the "entitled fees" list, covered under Award & Benefits, nor approved by the sanctioning committee also go unpaid, even when the student qualifies.

Continuation

Renewal conditions

There is no automatic carry-over from one year to the next. The notification asks eligible students to apply through the Bursary portal as either a Fresh or a Renewal case, and a renewal application must upload the marksheets of the last qualifying examination, a bonafide certificate, an income certificate from the competent authority and a fee receipt authenticated by the Head of Institution (Official Gazette, Series I No. 30, 2024).

Because the family income is re-certified each time, a household that crosses the Rs 5 lakh line during the course would fall outside the scheme for that year. And since the scrutiny committee weighs the marks of the last qualifying examination against parental income, the result a student posts this year may shape how next year's renewal is ranked. The notification does not set a separate minimum mark for renewal.

What you get

Award & benefits

The grant is a refund on receipts, capped per year. Under the 2024 notification, the actual "entitled fees" a student paid are reimbursed up to a maximum of Rs 40,000 per annum, and the same definition of entitled fees takes in spending on textbooks and reference books for the course, up to Rs 5,000 (Official Gazette, Series I No. 30, 2024).

The table sets out what the notification treats as reimbursable.

Official pages disagree on how the book money adds up, and the gazetted text settles it. The notification of 17 September 2024 caps entitled fees at Rs 40,000 and then writes textbook spending into those same entitled fees, so on its wording the books sit inside the Rs 40,000 rather than on top of it; its interpretation clause leaves any doubt over a clause to the Government (Official Gazette, Series I No. 30, 2024). GEDC's announcement of the 2025-26 round likewise puts the payout at up to Rs 40,000, with no separate book sum (GEDC, Bursary Schemes). The Bursary portal's undated FAQ, by contrast, lists an "Additional" Rs 5,000 for books beyond Rs 40,000 for fees (Bursary portal FAQ), and the myScheme text on this page repeats that reading. Until GEDC or the Government says otherwise, budget on Rs 40,000 as the most one year can return.

Hostel, mess and transport charges are not on the entitled list, so treat them as your own cost unless the committee approves them. The claim is also limited to what you actually paid, up to the ceiling, and the approved sum reaches you by Direct Benefit Transfer.

• Fee Reimbursement Assistance
• The scheme provides reimbursement of eligible fees up to: ₹40,000 per annum towards course fees
• Additional ₹5,000 per annum for textbooks/reference books
• Eligible fee components include: Tuition Fees, Registration Fees, Library Fees, Laboratory Fees, Gymkhana Fees, IT Charges, Practical Fees, and other approved charges.
• Mode of Disbursement
• Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) to the student's bank account.
• NOTE: The student must first pay the prescribed fees to the educational institution.
• Reimbursement is based on the actual fees paid and eligibility under the scheme.

What to prepare

Documents required

The marksheets you upload depend on the level you are studying at. The 2024 notification lists them by applicant type (Official Gazette, Series I No. 30, 2024):

The online form asks for more than the headline list. The portal's student manual has applicants upload the fee receipt and, if they have one, a textbook receipt; a passbook or cancelled cheque, an Aadhaar card and a bank seeding document; a death certificate for any deceased parent, with guardian details if both parents have died; and an e-signed undertaking (Bursary portal student manual). GEDC caps each upload at 500 kb, so compress scans before you start (GEDC, Bursary Schemes).

Step by step

How to apply

Applications go through the Bursary portal at bursary.dhe.goa.gov.in, and the Directorate's scheme page adds that the CM's Scholarship Portal and GEDC's website both carry links to it (Directorate of Higher Education, Goa).

Start on SUGAM, Not on the Bursary Site

Registration does not happen on the Bursary site itself. The student manual has you register on the SUGAM platform at sugam.gshec.edu.in, log in there, and click the Bursary scheme card, which opens your Bursary dashboard (Bursary portal student manual). The "New Application" tab appears only while a round is open. Your email and mobile number are pulled from SUGAM and cannot be edited in the bursary form, so register with a number you will keep.

Filling the Form

The form runs in sections: personal details, address, past and current qualifications (marking which exam was your last qualifying one), the bonafide certificate, fee details copied from your receipt, parents or guardian, total family annual income with the certificate, and bank details, where the IFSC code fills in the branch on its own. The undertaking is signed through an Aadhaar OTP on the e-sign portal, downloaded and uploaded back. You then preview and submit, and a confirmation email follows (Bursary portal student manual).

After You Submit: Verification and Status

Your Head of Institution has to verify and authenticate the application within the set timelines. If something needs fixing, the application is sent back to you with an SMS, and you must correct it by the due date (Official Gazette, Series I No. 30, 2024). GEDC says status updates go to the registered mobile number, which is why the SUGAM number matters (GEDC, Bursary Schemes). The student manual walks through filing only and describes no status screen, so that SMS channel is the one GEDC itself names for tracking (Bursary portal student manual).

How winners are picked

Selection process

Meeting the eligibility test makes you a candidate, not a beneficiary. GEDC places the applications before a Scrutiny Committee, which scrutinises and recommends them for sanction on the marks in the last qualifying examination set against parental income, so as to meet the tests of both "Need" and "Merit". Payment then depends on the funds available in the budget for the matching financial year (Official Gazette, Series I No. 30, 2024). The notification sets no fixed number of awards and no cut-off mark. For a sense of scale, GEDC's own scheme page says around 600 Goan students have benefited every year since 2014 (GEDC, Bursary Scheme).

Fine print

Terms & conditions

Several clauses of the 2024 notification shape what happens after sanction (Official Gazette, Series I No. 30, 2024):

• The scheme is paid from the interest on a Bursary Scheme Corpus Fund kept by GEDC, topped up through the budget, and it may also accept donations from industrialists, philanthropists and the public.
• A beneficiary who later finds paid work may refund the benefit and may contribute to the fund. The wording is "may", so repayment is voluntary.
• Relaxation runs through GEDC: the Government can waive a condition in a genuine case only on the corporation's recommendation, and it keeps the last word on both the meaning of a clause and any grievance.

The paper application form GEDC used for the combined 2023-24 and 2024-25 round spelled out the price of a false statement. In its undertaking the applicant accepts disqualification, with any amount disbursed becoming repayable immediately along with any penal interest, and the Head of Institution's certificate on the same form warns that the college may be held responsible and recoveries made (GEDC, Bursary Scheme; GEDC application form). The online form has students e-sign an undertaking instead, and the student manual does not print its wording (Bursary portal student manual).

Get help

Contact

GEDC handles scheme questions: 0832-2411194 (10:00 am to 5:00 pm) or bursary.gedc@gmail.com, at the Ground Floor, SCERT Building, Alto Porvorim, Goa 403521. Problems with the website itself go to the Directorate's software team on 0832-2410824 or 2415585, or techhelp.bursary@gmail.com (Bursary portal, Contact Us). GEDC's scheme page also lists 0832-2411187 as a second office line (GEDC, Bursary Schemes).

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.

Explore more

Related scholarships

References

Sources