Chief Minister's Shishu Seva Scheme, Assam

What is the Chief Minister's Shishu Seva Scheme?

Chief Minister's Shishu Seva Scheme, often written locally as Sishu Seva Achoni, is a child protection and income-support scheme of the Government of Assam for children who were orphaned during the Covid-19 pandemic. Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma launched it on 29 May 2021, at the height of the second wave, and it is run out of the Chief Minister's Secretariat with the Social Welfare Department, the District Child Protection Units and the Deputy Commissioners doing the actual identification and disbursal work in each district.

The scheme's central idea is different from a normal monthly pension. Instead of paying a benefit out of the annual budget every month for two decades, Assam places a one-time corpus of roughly Rs 7.67 lakh as a fixed deposit in the child's own name. The interest that corpus earns is released to the child as a monthly payment of Rs 3,500, and the principal itself is handed over when the beneficiary turns 24 years old. Speaking at the Phase-II distribution at Janata Bhawan, Dispur on 31 July 2022, the Chief Minister described the payment as "a monthly income scheme of Rs 3,500 per month, being the interest accrued on a Fixed Deposit of Rs 7.67 lakh deposited in their respective names".

That structure is what makes the scheme unusual and worth understanding properly. A child enrolled at the age of eight receives a modest but predictable monthly amount for sixteen years, and then receives a lump sum in their early twenties; at exactly the point where higher education fees, a skill course or the cost of setting up independently tend to bite hardest.

Main features

• A fixed deposit of about Rs 7.67 lakh opened in the child's own name.
• Rs 3,500 a month released from the interest on that deposit.
• Payment continues until the child attains 24 years of age.
• The principal is released to the beneficiary at 24, not to the guardian.
• Free residential education for children with no extended family to live with.
• Vocational and skill-based training so beneficiaries can earn a livelihood.

Who is eligible for the Chief Minister's Shishu Seva Scheme?

A child can be enrolled if:

• The child is a resident of Assam.
• The child lost both parents to Covid-19, or lost the sole surviving parent who was their only guardian.
• The death is linked to Covid-19. Announcing the widened criterion on 30 May 2021, the Chief Minister said children orphaned by post-Covid complications are also covered, so a death that occurred weeks after recovery, from complications of the infection, is not automatically excluded.
• The child is below the age at which the benefit ends, that is, under 24.

A child is not eligible if:

• One parent is still living. Shishu Seva is not a single-parent assistance scheme. Children with one surviving parent are directed to other Social Welfare Department programmes rather than this one.
• The orphanhood is unrelated to Covid-19. Deaths from accidents, other illnesses or other causes fall outside the scheme's stated scope, although the Assam government has in practice extended assistance to some orphaned children outside the strict Covid category during distribution events.
• The death cannot be documented. Without a death certificate and supporting medical record, the district authority has no basis on which to certify the case.
• The child has already crossed 24 years of age, at which point there is no remaining benefit period.

There is no income test published for this scheme. The qualifying event is the loss of both parents, not the family's economic bracket, which is a meaningful difference from most Assam welfare schemes, where an income certificate is the first thing asked for.

What documents are required?

How to apply for the Chief Minister's Shishu Seva Scheme

Chief Minister's Shishu Seva Scheme does not run through an open online application portal in the way Orunodoi or the scooty scheme do. Assam identifies beneficiaries administratively, through the child protection machinery that already tracks orphaned and vulnerable children. The practical route for a guardian, a relative or a school is therefore to get the case formally on the district's list.

1. Collect the death certificates of both parents from the registering authority. The municipal body, the Gaon Panchayat or the district registrar of births and deaths, along with the hospital record or RT-PCR report that shows the cause of death.
2. Approach the District Child Protection Officer (DCPO) at the District Child Protection Unit in your district headquarters. This unit, under the Social Welfare Department, is the designated body for orphaned and vulnerable children and it is the office that compiles the Shishu Seva list.
3. Submit a written application with the documents, giving the child's name, date of birth, present guardian, address and school. Ask for a dated receipt.
4. Also inform the Deputy Commissioner's office of your district. District administrations were given the responsibility of verifying and forwarding Covid-orphan cases to the state, and a copy filed there prevents the case from being lost between offices.
5. Cooperate with the field verification. A Child Welfare Committee member or a child protection worker will visit to confirm the child's living arrangement and guardianship before the case is recommended.
6. Open the bank account in the child's name when instructed, with the guardian as the operator, so the fixed deposit and the monthly credit can be set up.

Applications are free. No agent, intermediary or "consultant" is authorised to charge a fee for getting a child's name onto the Shishu Seva list, and no official will ask for a payment or for an OTP.

How is the money paid and when does it stop?

The fixed deposit is opened in the child's own name at a bank, and the interest it earns is what funds the monthly payment. The Assam government's stated figure is Rs 3,500 per month, and this continues until the beneficiary attains 24 years of age. At that point the deposit matures and the principal of roughly Rs 7.67 lakh is transferred to the beneficiary's savings account.

Because the corpus is locked, a guardian cannot break the deposit to meet a short-term need. That is a deliberate safeguard: the state's concern in 2021 was that orphaned children's money would be absorbed by the adults around them before the child reached adulthood.

Certificates of the fixed deposit have been handed over in phased events. The first tranche followed the launch in May 2021, and a Phase-II distribution took place at Janata Bhawan, Dispur on 31 July 2022, at which the Chief Minister handed fixed deposit certificates and laptops to beneficiaries in person.

What else does the scheme provide besides money?

Two non-cash components were announced with the scheme and matter as much as the deposit for children with no family left.

• Free residential education. Children who have no extended family member willing or able to take them in are given free residential educational facilities by the state, rather than being placed only in a child care institution without a schooling plan.
• Vocational or skill-based training. Beneficiaries are to be given vocational or skill training so that they can earn a livelihood as adults, which is the intended pairing with the lump sum released at 24.

Why a Shishu Seva case gets stuck, and how to fix it

• Cause of death not documented as Covid-19. This is the most common problem, especially where a parent died at home or weeks after recovering. Obtain the hospital treatment record or a certificate from the treating doctor and cite the Chief Minister's 30 May 2021 statement that post-Covid complication deaths are covered.
• Only one death certificate available. Both parents' deaths must be documented. If one parent died years earlier, get that certificate from the registrar of births and deaths for the relevant year.
• Guardianship unclear. Where several relatives claim custody, the Child Welfare Committee has to fix the guardian before an account can be opened. Approach the CWC directly rather than waiting.
• Name mismatch between the child's Aadhaar, birth certificate and school record. Correct the records first — a bank will not open a deposit on conflicting names.
• Case reported to the wrong office. A letter to a police station or a school does not enter the child protection system. Route it through the District Child Protection Unit.

Where to raise a grievance

• District Child Protection Unit / District Child Protection Officer in your district, the first and most effective point of contact for anything to do with an orphaned child's entitlement in Assam.
• Deputy Commissioner's office of the district, for delays in verification or forwarding.
• Social Welfare Department, Government of Assam, at socialwelfare.assam.gov.in, for departmental escalation.
• Childline 1098, the national child helpline, which operates in Assam and can connect a caller to the district child protection system.
• Chief Minister's Secretariat, at cm.assam.gov.in, where the scheme is announced and its distribution events are recorded.

Chief Minister's Shishu Seva Scheme is a small scheme by beneficiary count but a heavy one by value per child. The figures quoted here; Rs 7.67 lakh, Rs 3,500 a month, and payment until age 24 to are the ones stated publicly by the Chief Minister at the scheme's launch and at the Phase-II distribution. Assam has not published a standalone scheme portal with guidelines, so a guardian pursuing a case should work through the District Child Protection Unit and insist on a written acknowledgement at every step.