Cash Award Scheme for Children of Registered Construction Workers (Bihar BOCW Board)

What is the Bihar construction workers' cash award scheme?

The Bihar Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board runs a Cash Award scheme that rewards the school results of children of registered construction workers. In the board's own scheme document the scheme appears as नकद पुरस्कार, sitting between the education financial assistance scheme and the marriage assistance scheme in the list of 17 welfare schemes the board operates. Many readers in Bihar search for it as Medhavi Putra/Putri Chhatravritti Yojana, which is the name the Jharkhand construction workers' board uses for its equivalent scholarship; in Bihar the correct name to quote at the Labour Officer's counter is the Cash Award scheme.

The board was constituted under the Building and Other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1996 and the Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Cess Act, 1996, implemented in Bihar through the Bihar rules of 2005 and their 2016 amendment. It is funded not from general taxation but from a 1 percent cess on the total construction cost of every state, central, semi-government and private commercial construction project in Bihar. Employers who do not deposit the cess on time pay interest at up to 2 percent a month and can face criminal prosecution carrying six months' imprisonment.

Who is eligible for the cash award?

Your child can claim if:

• You are a construction worker registered with the Bihar BOCW Welfare Board and your membership has been live for at least one completed year.
• Your contributions are up to date. The board charges Rs 20 as a registration fee and Rs 30 as five years of contribution at 50 paise a month, Rs 50 in all, payable in one go at registration, with renewal after five years.
• The child scored 60 percent or more in the Class 10 or Class 12 examination of a board operating under the State of Bihar.
• You are claiming for no more than two children in total.

You cannot apply if:

• You are not registered with the board. Workers employed in a managerial or administrative capacity are excluded from the definition of a construction worker, as are workers covered by the Factories Act, 1948 and the Mines Act,

• Your membership lapsed because contributions were not paid. The board states that membership ends on non-payment and that no benefit is then available. Arrears at 50 paise a month can revive it, but not more than twice.
• The child's result is below 60 percent, or is from an examination other than Class 10 or Class 12.
• You have already claimed for two children.

Registration itself is open to construction workers aged 18 to under 60 who have worked at least 90 days on construction work in the previous 12 months.

Which workers count as construction workers in Bihar?

The board's scheme document lists 20 categories of unorganised construction work covered in Bihar, and says the list is illustrative rather than exhaustive. It includes unskilled building and road labourers, masons and mason's helpers, carpenters, blacksmiths, painters, electricians doing building wiring, floor and tile layers and their helpers, centring and bar-binding workers, gate-grill and welding workers, concrete mixers and carriers, women workers who carry cement and mortar, roller operators, workers on road, bridge and dam construction, operators of modern road-laying machinery, watchmen at construction sites, plumbers and fitters doing water management work, brick-making and stone-breaking labourers, unskilled temporary workers on railway, telephone and airport construction, and MGNREGA workers other than those on horticulture and forestry work.

How much does the cash award pay?

The award is payable per year to a maximum of two children of a registered worker, after one completed year of membership. All benefits are paid by RTGS into the beneficiary's bank account.

How to apply for the Bihar BOCW cash award

1. Confirm the parent's registration is live. Check the membership card and the contribution record. If the membership has lapsed, clear the arrears at 50 paise a month with the registering officer before applying.
2. Collect the child's board marksheet and calculate the exact percentage. The slabs are unforgiving at the boundary: 69.99 percent pays Rs 10,000, and 70 percent pays Rs 15,000.
3. Obtain the prescribed application form. The board states that a beneficiary must submit an application in the prescribed form at the Labour Officer's office for every scheme except the annual medical assistance scheme. Forms are downloadable from the board's website.
4. Fill and submit the form at the district Labour Officer (Shram Adhikari) office with the registration card, marksheet, Aadhaar and bank passbook copy.
5. Apply online where the portal is open. The board's scheme portal at bocwscheme.bihar.gov.in carries online scheme applications and the scheme document; log in with the registered worker's credentials and select the cash award scheme.
6. Keep the dated receipt and follow up with the Labour Officer's office after about a month.

How to register as a construction worker first

1. Fill the registration form with an Aadhaar card (compulsory), bank account details, age proof (Aadhaar, voter card, ESIC or school certificate, birth certificate, or a certificate from a medical officer not below the rank of Assistant Civil Surgeon if you are a government servant), a 90-day work certificate from the employer, and two colour passport-size photographs.
2. If the employer will not issue the 90-day certificate, submit a self-declaration covering the 90 days of work instead. The board expressly permits this.
3. In rural areas, hand the form to the Panchayat Rozgar Sevak or the Labour Enforcement Officer at the construction site. In urban areas, the Labour Enforcement Officer or Labour Superintendent collects forms at the site.
4. Pay Rs 50 in total, Rs 20 registration plus Rs 30 contribution for five years.

The Labour Enforcement Officer verifies at least 5 percent of applications received through Panchayat Rozgar Sevaks, and the Labour Superintendent verifies at least 5 percent of those received from Labour Enforcement Officers, before registration is completed after Aadhaar verification.

Why cash award claims fail

• Membership under one year. The one-year qualifying period is applied strictly and is the most common reason for a rejection.
• Lapsed contributions. Non-payment of the 50 paise monthly contribution ends membership; benefits stop with it.
• Third child. The two-child cap is applied across the family.
• Marks just under a slab. Percentages are read from the marksheet, not rounded up.
• Wrong bank details. RTGS fails on a wrong IFSC or account number, and the file is returned for correction.
• No prescribed form. A plain letter is not accepted; the board's own form is mandatory.

What else the same registration unlocks

Registration with the Bihar BOCW Board also gives access to maternity benefit of 90 days' minimum wage for the first two deliveries, paternity benefit of Rs 6,000, financial assistance for education of Rs 5,000 to Rs 20,000 plus full tuition at premier government institutions, marriage assistance of Rs 50,000, a bicycle purchase grant of up to Rs 3,500, a tool purchase grant of up to Rs 15,000 after skill training, a house repair grant of up to Rs 20,000, an old-age and disability pension of Rs 1,000 a month, annual medical assistance of Rs 3,000, cremation assistance of Rs 5,000, and death benefit of Rs 2 lakh for natural death or Rs 4 lakh for accidental death. Claiming the cash award does not use up any of these.

Help and grievance redressal

• Bihar Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board, Niyojan Bhawan, Patna 800001 to phone 0612-2525558, email biharbhawan111@gmail.com.
• Labour Resources Department Minister's cell — 0612-2528450.
• District Labour Officer (Shram Adhikari) of your district; the board says district labour officers' email addresses and mobile numbers are published on its website.

No fee is payable to any agent for a cash award claim. The only money the board collects from a worker is the Rs 50 registration and contribution payment.

How to check your application status

The Bihar BOCW Board does not run a single public "track my application" number that works across every district, so tracking the cash award claim depends on how it was filed.

If you applied on the bocwscheme.bihar.gov.in portal:

1. Log in with the registered worker's credentials, the same login used to submit the cash award application.
2. Open the applications or scheme status section of the dashboard. It shows each scheme applied for against the worker's registration and the current stage the file is at.
3. If the portal shows the application as still pending after about a month with no movement, that is the point to escalate offline rather than keep checking online, since the portal does not always push status updates in real time.

If you applied offline at the Labour Officer's office:

1. Keep the dated receipt issued when the form was submitted; it is the only proof of submission and the reference point for any follow-up.
2. Visit or call the same district Labour Officer (Shram Adhikari) office where the form was filed, quoting the receipt date and the worker's registration number. Files at this stage move through the Labour Officer's desk, not through a centralised call centre.
3. Ask specifically whether the file has gone for verification, is awaiting the Labour Officer's approval, or has been forwarded for RTGS payment. These are the three stages a cash award claim passes through, and knowing which one it is at tells you who to follow up with next.
4. If the Labour Officer's office cannot locate the file or gives no clear answer, the next level is the Bihar Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board office at Niyojan Bhawan, Patna 800001, phone 0612-2525558, or the Labour Resources Department Minister's cell at 0612-2528450.

Once the award is approved: payment comes only by RTGS into the bank account given at registration or on the application form, never in cash or by cheque. Check the bank account or passbook for the credit rather than expecting a separate notification from the board. If the registered bank account has since changed, the Labour Officer's office needs to be informed and the account corrected before the RTGS is attempted, otherwise the payment will fail and the file gets sent back for correction.

There is no SMS-based status service and no separate helpline number dedicated only to cash award tracking; the district Labour Officer's office and the board's own numbers above are the working channels.