Funeral Financial Assistance (APB&OCWWB), Arunachal Pradesh

What is Funeral Financial Assistance under the APB&OCWWB?

Funeral Financial Assistance is a small statutory welfare payment made by the Arunachal Pradesh Building & Other Construction Workers Welfare Board (APB&OCWWB), which functions under the Department of Labour and Employment, Government of Arunachal Pradesh. The Board pays Rs 1,000 to the recorded nominee of a registered construction worker who has died, to meet part of the immediate cost of the funeral.

According to the Arunachal Scheme Handbook published on a Government of Arunachal Pradesh website, the assistance is provided "in addition to death benefit either normal or accidental", and the Rs 1,000 is released "at the time of sanctioning the death benefit amount". In practice that means the funeral assistance is not a separate journey through the system. It rides along with the larger death benefit claim of Rs 50,000 for a natural death or Rs 1,00,000 for an accidental death.

The Board itself is constituted under the Building and Other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1996, and is financed by the cess levied on construction cost under the BOCW Welfare Cess Act, 1996. Every benefit it pays, including this one, is therefore tied strictly to a worker's registration record rather than to an income or poverty test.

Funeral Financial Assistance is one of 12 statutory benefits listed in the APB&OCWWB circular for registered workers. The full list also includes maternity benefit of Rs 1,000, death benefit, medical assistance, marriage assistance of Rs 10,000, disability and old-age pension, an advance of Rs 1.00 lakh for purchase or construction of a house, a refundable tool loan of Rs 15,000, education assistance of Rs 15,000 to Rs 50,000 and annual cash awards for children of workers who do well in the Class X and Class XII examinations.

Who is eligible for the funeral assistance, and who is not eligible?

A claim can be made when all of these are true:

• The deceased was a building and other construction worker — engaged in construction, alteration, repair, maintenance or demolition work.
• The deceased was registered as a beneficiary with the APB&OCWWB.
• The worker's membership was active at the time of death.
• The claimant's name was recorded as nominee or dependant on the registration card before the death.

You are not eligible and cannot apply if:

• The deceased never registered with the Board, or the registration had lapsed or been cancelled before the death.
• Your name does not appear on the worker's registration card as nominee or dependant, even if you paid for the funeral.
• The deceased was an employer, contractor or supervisor rather than a worker covered by the BOCW Act, or worked in a trade outside building and other construction work.
• The worker's death occurred before registration was completed.

Under Section 12 of the BOCW Act, 1996, a construction worker qualifies for registration if he or she is between 18 and 60 years old and has worked for not less than 90 days in the preceding twelve months. The practical gate on this scheme is therefore registration, not the funeral claim itself. Families of unregistered workers have no entitlement under the Board, which is why labour offices press workers to register and to keep the membership live.

What documents are required?

The list is short deliberately. Because the funeral assistance is settled with the death benefit, the same set of papers supports both claims, and there is no need to submit a second file of documents for the Rs 1,000.

How to apply for Funeral Financial Assistance

Funeral Financial Assistance is claimed offline. Follow the same route used for the death benefit claim, and ask for both to be processed together.

1. Visit the nearest registered office of the district or sub-division APB&OCWWB where the worker was registered, taking the original registration card and the death certificate.
2. Collect the prescribed application form from that office. The scheme documentation states the form is received from the concerned office, so there is no downloadable version to fill in advance.
3. Fill the form completely, attach the original registration card, the death certificate and the front page of the nominee's bank passbook, and state clearly that both the death benefit and the funeral assistance are being claimed.
4. Submit the application to the Registering Officer and ask for an acknowledgement or diary number.
5. Follow up after verification. Once the office verifies the registration status, the nomination entry and the death record, the Rs 1,000 is sanctioned along with the death benefit and credited to the nominee's bank account.

Apply at the office where the registration was made, even if the family has since moved, because that office holds the register entry against which the claim is verified.

How much is paid and how it fits with other benefits

Funeral Financial Assistance is a flat Rs 1,000, paid once. It is not adjusted for the actual cost of the funeral, and it is not repeated for other deaths in the family.

Combined with the death benefit, a family typically receives:

• Rs 51,000 in a natural-death case (Rs 50,000 death benefit + Rs 1,000 funeral assistance), or
• Rs 1,01,000 in an accidental-death case (Rs 1,00,000 death benefit + Rs 1,000 funeral assistance).

A separate point worth knowing: news reports from October 2020, when the Chief Minister announced the Mukhya Mantri Shramik Kalyan Yojana for workers in Arunachal Pradesh, described enhanced welfare figures for construction workers. The state government's own Arunachal Scheme Handbook, however, still records Rs 1,000 as the funeral assistance and Rs 50,000 / Rs 1,00,000 as the death benefit. Because no revised rate has been confirmed on an official state source that can be checked today, this guide states the handbook figures and advises readers to confirm the current rate with the Registering Officer before filing.

Why funeral assistance claims get delayed or rejected

• Membership not active at the date of death, which disqualifies the whole claim including the Rs 1,000.
• No nominee recorded on the registration card, or a different nominee named in the application.
• Original registration card not produced, forcing the office to trace the entry manually.
• Name mismatch between the death certificate and the registration card.
• Bank details incorrect or the account dormant, so the credit fails after sanction.

Each of these has a fix. A dormant account is reactivated at the bank branch and a fresh passbook copy submitted; a name mismatch is resolved with an affidavit or a corrected certificate; a missing card is handled by the Registering Officer from the Board's register.

How to check the status of the claim

1. Go back to the district or sub-division registering office where the form was submitted, with the acknowledgement or diary number.
2. Ask the Registering Officer whether the combined death benefit and funeral assistance file has been verified and sanctioned.
3. Check the nominee's bank passbook or statement once sanction is confirmed, since the money is credited directly.

There is no online tracker for this scheme, so the acknowledgement slip is the only record of the filing date. Keep it until the money is credited.

Where to raise a grievance

• Registering Officer, APB&OCWWB, of the concerned district or sub-division. The first authority for every claim.
• Secretary, Arunachal Pradesh Building & Other Construction Workers Welfare Board, where a district-level file has not moved.
• Department of Labour and Employment, Government of Arunachal Pradesh, the nodal department for the Board.

Filing costs nothing. No agent, contractor or middleman has any role in sanctioning the Rs 1,000, and any demand for a cut of the amount should be reported in writing to the Registering Officer.