Assam BOCW Welfare Board Annual Health Check-up Benefit

What is the Assam BOCW annual health check-up benefit?

Assam BOCW Welfare Board Annual Health Check-up is a welfare benefit paid by the Assam Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board to its registered members. According to the Assam Labour Commissionerate's published list of welfare benefits for registered construction workers, the Board provides "Rs. 5,000/- once in a year for his/ her annual health check up" to a registered worker with continuous membership, and the check-up may be done at any hospital.

Assam set up the Board under the Building and Other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1996. The Board is funded by a cess collected on the cost of construction work, so its benefits are ring-fenced for construction workers who have actually registered as beneficiaries. This matters for the health check-up more than for most benefits, because a worker who has been on site for ten years but never registered with the Board has no claim at all.

The Board's benefit is deliberately preventive. Most of the Board's other health money is triggered by something going wrong: Rs 1,000 a day for the first five days of hospitalisation under medical assistance, up to Rs 3,00,000 of ex-gratia for disability, Rs 50,000 on normal death. The Rs 5,000 annual check-up is the one benefit designed to be used while the worker is still well, to catch respiratory disease, hypertension, diabetes and silicosis-related conditions that are common in construction work.

Who is eligible for the BOCW health check-up in Assam?

You can claim if:

• You are registered with the Assam BOCW Welfare Board and hold a valid beneficiary registration card or ID number.
• Your membership is continuous. The annual subscription to the Board has been paid and the registration has not lapsed.
• You work as a building or other construction worker covered by the 1996 Act — mason, carpenter, bar bender, painter, plumber, electrician, helper, loader or similar site worker.
• You have not already drawn the check-up benefit in the current year.
• You hold a bank account in your own name, seeded with Aadhaar, so the Board can pay by direct benefit transfer.

You cannot claim, or are not eligible, if:

• You are not registered with the Assam BOCW Welfare Board. Registration cannot be done retrospectively to cover a check-up already carried out.
• Your membership has lapsed because the annual subscription was not paid. Renewal restores future entitlement, not a claim for the lapsed period.
• You are a contractor, employer or supervisor rather than a worker engaged in building or other construction work.
• You work in a sector outside the 1996 Act, such as a factory, a tea garden or motor transport. Assam has separate welfare boards for tea employees and for motor transport workers.
• You have already taken the Rs 5,000 for the same year of membership.
• You cannot produce bills or a check-up report, since the benefit is settled against actual expenditure.

What documents are required?

How to apply for the Assam BOCW health check-up

1. Confirm first that your Board registration is active and the annual subscription is paid. Check this at the District Labour Office or by logging in at abocwwb.assam.gov.in before you spend money on the check-up.
2. Get the health check-up done at any hospital and keep the original bills, money receipts and the report. Ask the hospital to print your full name on the bill exactly as it appears on your Board registration.
3. Log in at abocwwb.assam.gov.in using your registered mobile number and the OTP, and open the claim section for welfare benefits.
4. Select the annual health check-up benefit, fill the claim form with the date of check-up, hospital name and amount spent.
5. Upload the scanned bills, the check-up report, your registration card, Aadhaar and bank passbook page.
6. Submit the claim and save the acknowledgement or claim reference number shown on screen.
7. If you cannot use the portal, take the same documents to your District Labour Office or a Public Facilitation Centre, fill the offline claim form and collect a dated receipt.
8. Track the claim with the reference number, and follow up at the District Labour Office if there is no movement after about a month.

There is no fee for filing a claim, either online or at the District Labour Office. No agent is authorised to charge for "getting a Board claim passed".

How much money do I actually get?

The published entitlement is Rs 5,000 once in a year. It is a reimbursement ceiling, not a flat cash grant: if the check-up cost Rs 3,200, the settlement is made against the bills produced rather than paid at the full Rs 5,000. Payment is made by direct benefit transfer into the worker's own Aadhaar-seeded account.

The check-up benefit sits inside a much larger benefit package that the Board publishes for registered workers:

Claiming the health check-up does not use up any of these other entitlements. A worker can draw the Rs 5,000 check-up in the same year as a hospitalisation claim, because they are separate heads.

How do I check the status of a health check-up claim?

1. Log in at abocwwb.assam.gov.in with your registered mobile number and the OTP sent to it.
2. Open the claim status or application history section and enter the claim reference number from your acknowledgement.
3. If the portal shows nothing, visit the District Labour Office with the acknowledgement and ask the dealing assistant to trace the file.
4. Call the state citizen services helpline 1800-345-3574 for help with an application filed through the Sewa Setu route.

Why BOCW health check-up claims get rejected

• Membership lapsed on the date of the check-up because the annual subscription was not paid. This is the single biggest cause.
• No original bills, only a report. The benefit is settled against expenditure, so a report alone is not enough.
• Name mismatch between the hospital bill, the Aadhaar record and the Board registration card.
• Bank account not Aadhaar-seeded, so the transfer fails even after sanction.
• Benefit already drawn for the same year of membership.
• Claimant not the registered worker, a family member's check-up bill filed under the worker's registration.
• Illegible or incomplete uploads on the portal, particularly photographs of bills taken at an angle.

Fix a seeding or name problem at the bank branch first, then re-submit through the portal. A lapsed membership is fixed by paying the subscription, but that restores future claims only.

Where do I complain?

• Assam BOCW Welfare Board portal: abocwwb.assam.gov.in, which carries the Board's own grievance and contact links.
• Sewa Setu helpline: 1800-345-3574 for applications routed through the state services portal.
• District Labour Officer of your district, the first authority for a claim that is stuck or rejected without a reason in writing.
• Labour Commissioner, Assam: labour.commissioner@assam.gov.in, the published departmental email for the Commissionerate.

Registration with the Board and every claim under it are free. Keep your registration card, subscription receipts, hospital bills and the claim acknowledgement together. A claim file that carries all four is rarely rejected on procedure.