The Meghalaya Tribal Students’ Book Grant (Post-Matric Education)(TMTSBG-PME)

Overview

About TMTSBG-PME

This is a purchase grant for books, not a maintenance stipend, and the difference decides everything else about it. The Meghalaya Tribal Students' Book-grant (Post Matric Education) Rules, 1982, notified by the Governor of Meghalaya under Notification No. EDN.272/80/4 dated 21st January 1982, set the grant against one purpose: books required for study in courses other than technical and vocational ones, at a recognised institution anywhere in India (Meghalaya Tribal Students' Book Grant (Post Matric Education) Rules, 1982, Directorate of Higher and Technical Education). The amount is fixed by the course a student is in, and it is paid once for that course.

Two features of the rules shape who actually receives it. The number of grantees is not a published figure but a budget decision the Department takes afresh every year, with selection made to the extent of funds available. And the money is not routed to the student: it is paid through parents or guardians, or through the institution where the candidate studies. A student expecting a bank credit in their own name is reading the wrong scheme.

Who runs it

Provider

At a glance

Key details

Calendar

Important dates

No calendar date is fixed in the scheme itself. Rule 6 leaves the closing date to the Director of Public Instruction, which is why the date moves and why the advertisement, not the rules, is the document to watch (Rules, 1982, rule 6).

That advertisement comes once a year and bundles the Book Grant with four other state schemes, so a single closing date applies to all of them. For 2023-24 the portal closed on 15th February 2024, after which it shut automatically (Advertisement 2023-24). The 2024-25 round moved that window several months earlier, closing in November (Advertisement for state scholarship schemes 2024-25, Directorate of Higher and Technical Education).

The round after that stayed in late November, closing on 28th November 2025 (Advertisement for state scholarship schemes 2025-26, Directorate of Higher and Technical Education). Its advertisement for state schemes of scholarships for the academic year 2025-2026 sits on the Directorate's notice board, which also carries the National Scholarship Portal openings for the central pre-matric and post-matric ST and SC schemes for the academic year 2026-27, with no state-schemes advertisement for 2026-27 beside them yet (Notice board, Directorate of Higher and Technical Education). Watching the notice board is the only reliable way to catch the window, since the closing date has landed anywhere from February to late November across recent cycles.

Who can apply

Eligibility criteria

The test has four parts, and only one of them is about marks. A student must be a permanent resident of Meghalaya belonging to the Khasi, Jaintia or Garo community, certified by the competent authority, with the State Government free to add other tribes to that list from time to time. The course must be a regular one, other than technical or vocational, at a recognised institution in any part of India, so studying outside Meghalaya costs nothing here. And the applicant must not be employed in any capacity under the Government (Rules, 1982, rule 4).

The marks condition is worth reading slowly. It asks for at least 60 percent in aggregate in the preceding examination conducted by the Board or University, which means the result that matters is last year's, not the one that got the student into the course years ago. A second-year degree student is judged on the first-year result. The Directorate's annual advertisement restates the same bar as 60% marks and above during the previous year examination, puts a range on the levels it will consider, class XI to Post-Graduation, and files the scheme under a name the rules never use: Book Grant Scholarship for Scheduled Tribe students. That, not the long statutory title, is the heading to look for on the portal (Advertisement for state scholarship schemes 2023-24, Directorate of Higher and Technical Education).

Who cannot apply

Exclusions

Nowhere do the rules print a list of who is barred. The disqualifiers have to be assembled from the purpose clause and the grant provisions, and the first of them is about what a student is studying. Technical and vocational courses are outside the scheme by definition of its purpose, and the Directorate's advertisement names the streams that fall out in practice: vocational, engineering, medical and paramedical courses (Advertisement 2023-24). Government employment in any capacity is a bar on the applicant, not on the household.

One more disqualification is easy to trip over because it applies after the money has already been received. A student who has taken the book grant for a particular course of study, and then changes that course, will not be granted further grants (Rules, 1982, rule 5). Switching from a science degree to an arts one after a first sanction closes the door rather than moving the student to a different slab.

Continuation

Renewal conditions

Nothing in the rules promises a second year to a student who received a first, and no renewal clause appears anywhere in the 1982 text (Rules, 1982). What the Directorate does instead is invite fresh and renewal applications together in one annual advertisement covering its state schemes. The Book Grant's entry there carries a single apply link with no fresh-or-renewal split at all, unlike Free Studentship, which is given one link for fresh cases and another for renewals, and unlike the Post Graduate Research Scholarship and the Border Areas Scholarship, whose single links are each marked Fresh and Renewal (Advertisement 2023-24).

Practically, a continuing student re-enters the same queue every year, carrying a fresh 60% aggregate from the examination just passed, and is selected again or not depending on that year's budget.

What you get

Award & benefits

The grant is a flat sum per academic course, and it rises with both the level of study and the stream, with science paid above arts at every level.

These are the slabs the 1982 notification set, and they are the slabs the Directorate publishes today. The state's own handbook of scholarship schemes reproduces the same nine figures in its summary of the scheme, down to the Rs 1500 for research students (A Handbook of Scholarship Schemes, Government of Meghalaya). Read the grant for what it is: a contribution towards a reading list at the rates of the year it was written.

• The amount of grant per student per academic course will be as follows: Class 11th - 12th (Arts & Commerce): ₹500/-
• Class 11th - 12th (Science): ₹700/-
• Degree Arts (Pass): ₹600/-
• Degree Arts (Honours): ₹750/-
• Degree Science (Pass): ₹900/-
• Degree Science (Honours): ₹1000/-
• Post-Graduate Course (Arts & Commerce): ₹900/-
• Post Graduate Course (Science): ₹1200/-
• Research studies for (Ph.D. M.Phil, or M.Lit.): ₹1500/-
• NOTE: A student receiving a book grant from the Government for a particular course of study, if changes the course of study will not be granted further grants.
• The grant to the selected candidates shall be paid through their parents/guardians or through the Instructions in which the candidates pursue their studies.

What to prepare

Documents required

The paper trail is built around proving three things, and the prescribed form makes that explicit. Annexure A of the rules asks for the parent's or guardian's monthly income with a certificate attached, a certificate that the applicant is a tribal student and a permanent resident of Meghalaya, a certificate of Khasi, Jaintia or Garo community, and the particulars of every examination passed commencing from H.S.L.C. or equivalent, with the mark sheets attached (Rules, 1982, Annexure A). The income certificate is not a threshold document here but a means document the Selection Committee weighs against the marks.

Online, one more upload was added. The advertisements for 2023-24 and 2024-25 both list a scanned copy of the applicant's Aadhaar card as mandatory (Advertisement 2023-24, Advertisement for state scholarship schemes 2024-25, Directorate of Higher and Technical Education). That followed a notification the Education Department issued in October 2023 under section 7 of the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016, requiring a beneficiary of the book grant to furnish proof of possession of an Aadhaar number or undergo Aadhaar authentication (Aadhaar notification for the book grant, Education Department, Government of Meghalaya). The same notification is also the reason not to abandon a form over a card that has not arrived: it directs that no child be denied the benefit for failing to authenticate, with an Aadhaar enrolment slip plus a birth certificate or a school identity card standing in until the number is assigned.

Step by step

How to apply

The rules and current practice describe two different routes, and both are still live in what a student is told. Rule 6 says applications go in on the prescribed form, to the Director of Public Instruction, through the institution where the candidate is studying, within the date fixed by that officer (Rules, 1982, rule 6). The Directorate now runs that submission online on the Meghalaya eDistrict portal, with one apply link per scheme, and it states that submission of a hard copy is not required. The link carries a service ID that changes with the year, 13166 for 2023-24 and 1397 for 2024-25, so an old link found in a search result will not open the current form (Advertisement 2023-24, Advertisement for state scholarship schemes 2024-25).

Correspondence is by email, so the address entered in the form is the channel through which everything afterwards arrives. The Directorate asks students to give a working personal email, and to install the Sandes app on the number they register, because notifications go there as well. Queries go to scholarshipregn@gmail.com. It also warns that once Final Submit is clicked the Directorate is not responsible for an applicant's own errors, and that a discrepancy in the details or documents will have the application cancelled.

To track what happens next, use Track Application on the eDistrict portal and enter the application or acknowledgement number to see the current status, any remarks, and whatever action is pending at the applicant's end. Two portal behaviours cause avoidable losses. A part-filled form saved as a draft generates a draft reference number, and that number does not mean the application has been submitted; the incomplete form is resumed through Track Application status and the view for incomplete applications. And when a file is sent back for corrections it shows as waiting for the applicant's response, which is the link through which the fields and enclosures allowed for update are resubmitted (e-District Meghalaya, Government of Meghalaya). Sanctioned lists are not published online for this scheme: the Directorate's awardees page carries a notice that it is under construction (Awardees list, Directorate of Higher and Technical Education).

How winners are picked

Selection process

Selection is a committee decision, not an automatic clearance of everyone who qualifies. The committee is constituted by the Department and chaired by the Director of Public Instruction, with the Joint Director as vice chairman, the Under-Secretary of Education, the E.A.O., two college principals nominated by the Director, and the Deputy Director in charge of post-matric education as member secretary (Rules, 1982, rule 7).

The rule that decides outcomes is the means-cum-academic merit test in rule 5, which is why the income certificate matters even though no ceiling is published anywhere in the scheme: a household's means is weighed against the student's marks, rather than screened at a cut-off. The committee is also required to give due weightage to proportionate representation of the Khasis, Garos and Jaintias, so the award is distributed across the three communities rather than pooled into a single merit list. The rules close that section bluntly: sanction is at the discretion of the Government, and no student may claim the grant as a matter of right. The Director of Public Instruction then sanctions the grant on the committee's recommendation.

Fine print

Terms & conditions

What the rules ask for last is the thing applicants rarely plan for: proof that the money bought books. The grant has to be used for the purpose for which it was given, and the Director of Public Instruction is required to obtain a utilization certificate with supporting papers and documents, countersigned by the appropriate authority (Rules, 1982, rule 10). Book bills are therefore worth keeping, because the institution or the guardian who received the money on the student's behalf may be asked to account for it.

Two other conditions run through the scheme. Any question about interpreting the rules goes to the Government in the Education Department, and that decision is final; and the rules may be modified or amended at any time the Department considers it necessary, which is why the slab table above is a current statement rather than a permanent one. On the application side, the Directorate states that a student found providing false information will have the application cancelled immediately (Advertisement 2023-24).

Get help

Contact

Two inboxes, and they are not interchangeable. Questions about the rules themselves go to the Directorate of Higher and Technical Education, which prints dydhtechnical@gmail.com under an address on Kenilworth Road, opposite Shillong Public School, in Laitumkhrah, Shillong 793003, with its Scholarship Cell working out of the same building (Directorate of Higher and Technical Education, Government of Meghalaya). Anything about a submitted application goes instead to scholarshipregn@gmail.com, the address the annual advertisement gives for queries (Advertisement 2023-24). Before either, try the head of the institution: rule 6 makes the college or school the channel the form travels through, so the scholarship desk there is where a stuck file is usually unstuck.

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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