Grant-in-Aid Scheme To Provide Financial Assistance To The Mahila Mandals/ Women's Self-help Groups (SWAWLAMBHAN)

What is the SWAWLAMBHAN scheme in Goa?

SWAWLAMBHAN is the Grant-in-Aid Scheme to Provide Financial Assistance to the Mahila Mandals and Women's Self Help Groups, run by the Directorate of Women and Child Development, Government of Goa. The name, swawlamban, meaning self-reliance: states the scheme's purpose exactly: it pays for training so that the women in a village group can start earning for themselves.

According to the Directorate's published state schemes document, the objective of the scheme is to provide financial assistance to Mahila Mandals and Self Help Groups for training and orientation for members of the Mahila Mandal or Self Help Group, for generating their own activity for self-employment. The scheme is applicable to all Mahila Mandals and Women's Self Help Groups duly registered before the competent authority within the territory of Goa.

What SWAWLAMBHAN changed

SWAWLAMBHAN is the amended and widened form of the older Goa Mahila Mandal grant-in-aid scheme. Two changes matter:

1. It extends the same benefits to Women's Self Help Groups alongside traditional Mahila Mandals. That brought the large population of SHGs formed under microfinance and livelihood programmes within reach of the state grant.
2. The compulsion of 2 years' registration is deleted. The earlier scheme required a Mandal to have been registered and functioning for two years before applying. A newly formed and registered SHG no longer has to wait.

How much does SWAWLAMBHAN pay?

The pattern of assistance set out by the Directorate is layered rather than a single lump sum:

The Directorate may also provide resource persons, master trainers and instructors for each course of activity through the Child Development Project Officers, so a group without a trainer of its own is not stuck.

A group running two courses in a year therefore sees Rs 20,000 in annual grant and Rs 10,000 in raw material assistance reaching its own account, with the trainers paid separately by the Directorate.

Who is eligible for SWAWLAMBHAN?

A group can apply if:

• It is a Mahila Mandal or a Women's Self Help Group duly registered before the competent authority within the territory of Goa, and that registration is valid.
• It submits a project report specifying the activities or training and a list of prospective beneficiaries with educational details.
• There are at least 20 members for the training or orientation programme.

Who cannot apply:

• An individual woman. SWAWLAMBHAN pays a group, not a person. The individual routes in Goa are Griha Aadhar (Rs 1,500 per month to a married woman above 18, resident of Goa for the last 15 years, with combined household gross income not exceeding Rs 3,00,000 a year), Laadli Laxmi (Rs 1 lakh to an eligible girl on attaining 18 or on marriage) and MAMTA (Rs 10,000 to a mother who delivers a live girl child in a registered medical institution).
• An unregistered group. However long a women's collective has met, without registration before the competent authority it falls outside the scheme.
• A group with fewer than 20 members for the training component.
• A group with a pending utilisation certificate. The scheme states that if the utilisation certificate is not submitted within a week of completing a training programme, grant-in-aid for the next course shall not be sanctioned.
• A mixed-gender or general-purpose association. The scheme is for Mahila Mandals and Women's Self Help Groups. NGOs working in women and child welfare should look instead at accreditation under the Goa Non-Governmental Organisations Accreditation Guidelines, 2014, which requires five years of continuous work in the field and a permanent office in Goa.

What documents are required?

How to apply for SWAWLAMBHAN

1. Check the registration. Confirm the Mahila Mandal or Women's Self Help Group is validly registered before the competent authority in Goa and obtain a copy of the certificate. Note that two years of prior registration is no longer required.
2. Decide one training programme. Each group can identify and opt for only one training programme at a time, so choose a trade that has a local market; tailoring, food processing, craft or a service skill.
3. Prepare the project report and beneficiary list. Set out the activity, the duration, the trainer and the intended use of the raw material grant, and attach a list of at least 20 prospective beneficiaries with educational details.
4. Assemble the financial documents — statements of accounts for the last two years, the audit report where applicable, and the utilisation certificate for any earlier grant.
5. Submit through the Mukhya Sevika to the CDPO. The application for financial assistance is submitted through the Child Development Project Officer of the concerned block, via the Mukhya Sevika at village level, in the prescribed format at Annexure-I to the scheme.
6. Fix and inform the training schedule. The date, place and timing must be fixed by the group before the training commences and informed to the Directorate of Women and Child Development.
7. Conduct the course for not less than 4 hours a day over 5 to 15 days, maintaining regular attendance records of participants.
8. File the utilisation certificate within one week of completing the programme, with bills and vouchers recorded properly and submitted to the CDPO through the Mukhya Sevika. The CDPO countersigns and forwards it to the Director.

Conditions the Directorate applies

• The amount sanctioned must be utilised for the sanctioned purpose only.
• The grant cannot be claimed as a matter of right.
• Assistance is sanctioned on a first come, first served basis, subject to the Government's decision.
• One training programme at a time per group.
• Training of not less than 4 hours a day, courses of 5 to 15 days.
• No additional liability of house rent, electricity bill or water bill is borne by the Government.
• Regular attendance of participants must be maintained by the group.
• Utilisation certificate within a week of completion, failing which the next course is not sanctioned.
• Bills and vouchers must be properly recorded and submitted to the CDPO through the Mukhya Sevika for utilisation.

The first-come-first-served rule has a practical consequence worth planning around: file early in the financial year. Two identical applications, one in April and one in February, do not have the same prospects.

Why SWAWLAMBHAN applications get rejected or delayed

• Registration lapsed or not with the competent authority in Goa.
• Fewer than 20 members on the beneficiary list for the training component.
• No project report, or a report that does not name the activity, the duration or the trainer.
• Accounts not enclosed for the last two years.
• Pending utilisation certificate from a previous course.
• Training schedule not informed to the Directorate before the course began.
• Course shorter than 5 days or running under 4 hours a day, which does not meet the scheme condition.
• Budget exhausted for the year under the first-come-first-served rule.

Most of these are curable in a single visit to the CDPO. The one that is not is a course already conducted without prior intimation, because the condition is that the schedule be fixed and informed before commencement.

Whom to contact

• Child Development Project Officer (CDPO) of your block, the designated official for this scheme and the correct first point of contact.
• Mukhya Sevika at village level, through whom the application is routed.
• Directorate of Women and Child Development, Government of Goa, Panaji. Website: dwcd.goa.gov.in
• Online service listing: goaonline.gov.in, Women and Child Development services, "Grant in Aid Scheme to provide Financial Assistance to the Mahila Mandal / Women's Self Help Group – Swawlamban".
• Women and child helpline: 1098

There is no application fee for SWAWLAMBHAN. If any intermediary asks a Mahila Mandal for money to get a grant sanctioned, that is not part of the scheme. The application goes free of charge through the Mukhya Sevika and the CDPO.

How to check your application status

SWAWLAMBHAN has no online tracking dashboard: the application moves on paper through the block office, so status has to be checked in person or by phone rather than by logging into a portal.

1. Start with the Mukhya Sevika. Since the group's application went in through her at village level, she is the fastest point of contact and usually knows whether the file has moved on to the CDPO.
2. Follow up with the Child Development Project Officer of the block. The CDPO's office holds the file once it leaves the village level and can confirm whether the project report and beneficiary list have been found complete, whether the application is still pending sanction, or whether it has been forwarded to the Director.
3. Ask specifically where in the process the file sits. Because sanction is first come, first served and subject to the Government's decision, a useful status question is not just "has it been approved" but "has it been logged and is it in the queue," since a complete but unsanctioned application can sit for weeks if the year's allocation is tight.
4. Contact the Directorate of Women and Child Development in Panaji if the block office cannot give a clear answer, since Annexure-I applications are ultimately sanctioned at the Directorate.
5. Keep proof of submission. A group should note the date the application was handed to the Mukhya Sevika or CDPO (an acknowledgement or receipt if one is given), since the first-come-first-served rule makes the submission date the reference point for any follow-up query.
6. For a group that already ran a training course, the relevant status to track is the utilisation certificate: whether the CDPO has countersigned and forwarded it to the Director, because the next course cannot be sanctioned while that certificate is pending.
7. Use the women and child helpline, 1098, for a general query when the block office is not reachable, though for file-specific status the CDPO or Mukhya Sevika remains the direct route.

There is no SMS or email update issued for this scheme, so a group should plan to check in periodically rather than wait for a notification.