Scheme for Awarding Fellowships for Undergraduate and Postgraduate Students

What is the Scheme for Awarding Fellowships for Undergraduate and Postgraduate Students?

Scheme for Awarding Fellowships for Undergraduate and Postgraduate Students is a student-support scheme of the Agriculture, Farmers Welfare and Co-operation Department, Government of Gujarat, operated through Anand Agricultural University. It provides a monthly stipend to students enrolled in the university's degree, postgraduate and doctoral programmes.

Anand Agricultural University is one of Gujarat's four state agricultural universities, and it teaches agriculture, horticulture, veterinary science, dairy technology, agricultural engineering and allied disciplines. Its students often come from farming families with cash incomes that rise and fall with the season. The fellowship is designed as a small, predictable monthly amount that covers recurring study costs: books, printing, laboratory consumables, local travel, rather than as a full maintenance grant.

Despite the name, the scheme covers three levels, not two: undergraduate, postgraduate and PhD.

How much does the fellowship pay?

The fellowship runs for a continuous 12 months, subject to satisfactory academic progress. It is not a one-time grant, and it is not linked to the number of semesters in a year, which means it continues through the vacation months as well.

Who is eligible for the Anand Agricultural University fellowship?

You can apply if:

• You are a regular full-time student enrolled in an undergraduate, postgraduate or PhD programme at Anand Agricultural University.
• Your family income does not exceed Rs 6,00,000 a year.
• You are not drawing any other scholarship or fellowship at the same time.

You cannot apply if:

• You study at a different university. This scheme is specific to Anand Agricultural University; students at Junagadh, Navsari or Sardarkrushinagar Dantiwada agricultural universities are not eligible under this particular scheme and should look at their own institution's fellowship notices.
• You are enrolled as a part-time, distance or external student. The scheme requires regular full-time enrolment.
• Your family income exceeds Rs 6,00,000 a year.
• You already hold another scholarship or fellowship, whether from a central ministry, the state government or a private trust. Concurrent benefits are not allowed, and an undertaking on this point has to be filed every year.

There is no caste or community restriction. Students of all categories, genders and communities are eligible on the same terms.

What documents are required?

How to apply for the fellowship

The application route is entirely offline and deliberately simple. There is no online portal for this fellowship.

1. Write an application on plain paper, addressed to the Director, Anand Agricultural University. State your name, programme, year of study, enrolment number, college and the level of fellowship you are applying for.
2. Attach the supporting documents — your Class 12 mark sheet, the graduate mark sheet if you are a PG or PhD applicant, the postgraduate mark sheet if you are a PhD applicant, passport size photographs, your family income proof, and the signed undertaking that you are not drawing any other scholarship or fellowship.
3. Submit the completed application with the documents to the Principal of your college. The Principal, not the Director's office, is the receiving point.
4. Ask for an acknowledgement with the date of submission, so you have a record if the file is queried later.
5. File a fresh undertaking each year confirming that you have not taken any other scholarship, since continuation of the benefit depends on it.

When should I apply?

Anand Agricultural University invites these applications at the start of the academic year rather than on a fixed calendar date, and the notice usually reaches students through the college Principal's office and the departmental notice board. No statewide last date is published for the scheme, so the practical advice is to ask your Principal's office in the first weeks of the session and to watch the college notice board.

What can go wrong with an application?

• Another scholarship in force. This is the commonest disqualifier, and it frequently catches students who applied for a central or state scholarship earlier in the year and forgot it was sanctioned. Check your bank statement before signing the undertaking.
• Income certificate above Rs 6,00,000 or an expired certificate.
• Missing mark sheet for the qualifying degree. A PhD applicant must attach both the graduate and the postgraduate mark sheets.
• Application handed in directly at the Director's office rather than routed through the Principal, which can delay the file.
• Part-time or external enrolment, which does not satisfy the regular full-time condition.
• Unsatisfactory academic progress, which affects continuation across the 12-month period.

What else a Gujarat student can hold instead

Because this fellowship bars concurrent scholarships, choosing it is an either-or decision, and the amounts are small enough that another award may be worth more. Two comparisons help.

The Education Department's interest subsidy on education loans, running since 2017-18, supports bright and needy students of Gujarat taking a scheduled-bank education loan of up to Rs 10,00,000 for higher study in India or abroad, by paying the interest through the moratorium period. The course duration plus one year. For a student funding an expensive professional degree with borrowed money, that interest relief is worth far more than Rs 500 or Rs 1,500 a month.

The Social Justice and Empowerment Department and the Tribal Development Department run their own study support for reserved-category students, including a 6% interest subsidy on bank loans of up to Rs 25,00,000 for study abroad, capped at Rs 1,50,000 a year for three years in the tribal version. Students who belong to those categories should check whether a departmental scholarship outperforms this university fellowship before signing the no-other-scholarship undertaking.

The rule to keep in mind is that the undertaking is annual. A student who signs it and later accepts another award has to stop drawing one of the two, so it is worth resolving the comparison before applying rather than after.

Where to get help

• The Principal of your college at Anand Agricultural University. The first and correct point of contact for this fellowship.
• The Director, Anand Agricultural University, to whom the application is addressed.
• Gujarat state scheme directory: mariyojana.gujarat.gov.in, which lists all Agriculture, Farmers Welfare and Co-operation Department schemes.
• Agriculture, Farmers Welfare and Co-operation Department: agri.gujarat.gov.in

The fellowship is free to apply for. No fee is payable to anyone for lodging the application or for having it recommended.

A note on what is and is not published

Gujarat's departmental guidelines record this fellowship as Scheme No. 519. The published material covers the amounts, the levels, the income limit, the no-concurrent-scholarship rule and the application route, and this guide reflects exactly that. Two things the department has not published are the number of fellowships available each year and the merit criteria used when applications exceed that number. Students should ask their Principal's office for the current year's intake before assuming that meeting the eligibility conditions guarantees an award.