Boarding House Stipend Scheme for Scheduled Tribe Students (Tripura)

What is the Boarding House Stipend Scheme in Tripura?

Boarding House Stipend Scheme is an educational-sector scheme of the Directorate of Tribal Welfare under the Tribal Welfare Department, Government of Tripura. It pays a daily stipend to Scheduled Tribe students who live in hostels so that board, lodging and basic upkeep are not a reason for a tribal child to drop out of school.

According to the Directorate's educational sector page, the objectives are three: to provide accommodation to ST boys and girls from remote areas, to provide residential facilities to ST students whose residence is beyond 3 km of the school, and to reduce the dropout rate.

Key features

• Stipend is paid at a daily rate per student, not as a lump sum.
• Covers students from Class I to Class XII.
• Applies both to government-run hostels and to approved NGO-run boarding houses.
• Paid for 322 days (described as ten months) in an academic year.
• The rate includes Rs 1 per day per student towards LPG subsidy, sweeping and cleaning.

How much does the boarding house stipend pay?

The rate has moved twice in recent years. The Directorate's scheme page records the stipend at Rs 65 per day per student, inclusive of the Rs 1 per day for LPG, sweeping and cleaning. The Finance Minister's budget speech for 2026-27 then records the current position: the Chief Minister approved enhancing the boarding house stipend from Rs 80 to Rs 100 per day per student from the month of February 2026, and at the enhanced rate about Rs 122 crore per annum will be needed to pay it.

At Rs 100 a day for 322 days, a full academic year works out to about Rs 32,200 per boarder. Treat that as an arithmetic illustration rather than a promised figure, because the money is spent on running the boarding house, food and upkeep for the student: rather than credited as cash to the student's own account.

Scale is worth stating too. During 2025-26 the state provided boarding house stipend to 33,635 ST students residing in 407 ST hostels.

Who is eligible for the boarding house stipend?

A student qualifies if:

• The student belongs to a Scheduled Tribe recognised in Tripura.
• The student is reading in Class I to Class XII.
• The student's residence is beyond 3 km of the school.
• The student has been given accommodation in a government-run hostel, a TTAADC hostel, a TTWREIS hostel or an approved NGO-run boarding house.

A student is not eligible if:

• The student is not from a Scheduled Tribe. Tripura runs separate schemes for SC, OBC and minority students through other departments.
• The student is a day scholar who does not reside in the hostel.
• The student's residence is within 3 km of the school, since the scheme is built around distance from school.
• The student is in a hostel that is not government-run or approved. Private hostels outside the approved list carry no claim.
• The student has left the hostel, the stipend stops for the days not spent in residence.

What documents are needed?

The Directorate lists the documents required for admission to an NGO-run hostel, and the same set is what a family should assemble:

How to apply for the Tripura boarding house stipend

The stipend is not an individual online application. It follows hostel admission, and the practical sequence is this:

1. Confirm the student's school enrolment in Class I to XII and collect the school admission document or school identity card.
2. Assemble the documents — ST certificate, ration card, Aadhaar, income certificate and the parents' mobile number; before approaching the hostel.
3. Apply for a hostel seat. Approach the warden or superintendent of the government ST hostel, TTAADC hostel or approved NGO-run boarding house nearest the school, and submit the documents there. For government hostels the Sub-Divisional Welfare Officer (SDWO) is the officer who handles the admission process at sub-division level.
4. Complete the boarder record. Once the seat is granted, the hostel enters the student in the boarder register, which is the record on which the daily stipend is claimed.
5. Verify the entry with the warden at the start of each academic year, since the stipend is claimed against days of actual residence.
6. Follow up through the SDWO if the boarder's name is missing from the claim for a month.

How to check whether the stipend has been claimed for a student

1. Ask the hostel warden or superintendent to show the boarder register entry and the days claimed for the month.
2. Escalate to the Sub-Divisional Welfare Officer (SDWO) for your sub-division, who consolidates hostel claims.
3. Contact the Call Centre of the Directorate of Tribal Welfare on +91-381-2325625 for a state-level query.
4. Check the Directorate's notice board at twd.tripura.gov.in, where deadlines, extensions and payment notices for tribal welfare schemes are published regularly.

Common problems and how to fix them

• ST certificate not yet issued. Apply through the SDM office first; without it the hostel cannot admit the student under this scheme.
• Name missing from the boarder register. This is the usual cause of a missed month. Get the warden to correct the register and re-file the claim.
• Long absence from the hostel. The stipend is paid for days of residence, so extended absence reduces the claim. Report planned absences to the warden.
• Hostel not on the approved list. An NGO-run boarding house must be approved by the Department. Check the approval status before admission, not after.
• Aadhaar or bank seeding pending. The Directorate routinely publishes Aadhaar-bank seeding deadlines for its scholarship schemes; keep the student's seeding current so payments are not held.
• Distance condition disputed. Where the 3 km rule is questioned, the school and the local body can certify the actual distance.

How this fits with Tripura's other tribal education schemes

Boarding House Stipend Scheme is one part of a larger educational package run by the Directorate of Tribal Welfare. Alongside it sit the Pre-Matric Scholarship for Classes VI to VIII at Rs 40 per month for ten months, the centrally sponsored Pre-Matric Scholarship for Classes IX and X, the Post-Matric Scholarship through the National Scholarship Portal, the Merit Award for students scoring 60 per cent and above, free text book grants ranging from Rs 300 for Class IX-X to Rs 500 for degree courses, and the One Time Financial Support scheme paying Rs 1,00,000 in two instalments to meritorious ST students in professional courses.

The Department also runs Special Coaching in Core Subjects for ST boarders in English, Mathematics and Science for six months, and Madhyamik drop-out coaching through NGO-run centres, where a stipend of Rs 65 per student per day is provided to hostellers. Families should note that these are separate entitlements. A boarder can receive the boarding house stipend and, separately, qualify for a scholarship or merit award.

Contacts and grievance redressal

• Directorate of Tribal Welfare, Government of Tripura, Gurkhabasti, P. N. Complex, Agartala, West Tripura
• Call Centre of the Directorate of Tribal Welfare: +91-381-2325625
• Office numbers: +91-381-2323565, +91-7005264594
• Website: twd.tripura.gov.in
• Tripura CM Helpline: 1905

No fee is payable for hostel admission under this scheme or for the stipend itself. If a hostel demands money for a seat or for including a boarder in the stipend claim, report it to the SDWO or to the Directorate's call centre.