Shelter Home for Women (SHW)

What is the Shelter Home for Women scheme?

Shelter Home for Women (SHW) is a social welfare scheme of the Directorate of Women and Child Development, Government of Goa. The scheme funds registered organisations to run homes that give temporary shelter and support to women who have no family or social support system to rely on, and that work to rehabilitate those women socially and economically through skill training and counselling.

The design point that readers most often get wrong is who the applicant is. Shelter Home for Women is not a personal benefit a woman applies for. The Directorate gives grants to institutions, the grant "consists of salary component and maintenance expenditure", in the words of the Directorate's own citizen charter, and those institutions then admit and support women. A woman in distress reaches a shelter home directly, or through the Directorate, the police or a Child Welfare Committee referral; she does not file a scheme application.

The scheme sits alongside Goa's wider protective framework. The Directorate's citizen charter lists shelter homes notified under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005 in both districts: including Ish Kripa Sadan at Solim, Bardez; Gomantak Lokseva Trust's Seva Ashram at Assagao; Recolhimento de Serra at Altinho, Panaji; and Yashasvi Mahila Mandal at Bordem, Bicholim in North Goa, and the Asylum of Majorda and Lar Sant De Terezina at Margao in South Goa.

Key features

• Grant-in-aid with a salary component and a maintenance expenditure component.
• Purpose is temporary shelter, not permanent institutionalisation.
• Rehabilitation delivered through skill training and counselling.
• Open only to registered bodies, never to individuals.
• Monitored by a State Level Committee chaired by the Minister for Women and Child Development.

Who is eligible for the Shelter Home for Women grant?

An organisation can apply if it is any one of the following:

• A non-government voluntary organisation registered under the Registration of Societies Act, 1860.
• A public trust registered under any law for the time being in force.
• A local body. A village panchayat or municipal council.
• A government body.
• Any other body specified by the Government for this purpose.

In every case the applicant body must also:

• Have a managing body with clearly defined powers, duties and responsibilities.
• Have experience of working in the field of women and children's welfare.
• Render its services without distinction of caste, religion or language.

You cannot apply, or are not eligible, if:

• You are an individual woman seeking shelter or a maintenance allowance. Shelter Home for Women is an institutional grant. Approach the Directorate or a notified shelter home instead.
• You are an unregistered group or an informal collective with no society registration, trust deed or constituting order.
• Your organisation has no track record in women and child welfare, the experience condition is explicit in the eligibility clause.
• Your organisation restricts admission on grounds of caste, religion or language, which contradicts the non-discrimination requirement.
• You are applying for a children's home. Destitute and orphaned children up to 18 years are covered by a separate Directorate scheme at Rs 400 per child per month in own premises and Rs 500 per child per month in rented premises.

What documents are required?

Goa also operates the Goa Non-Governmental Organisations Accreditation Guidelines, 2014, under which NGOs working in women and child welfare within Goa for a minimum of five years and holding a permanent office in the State can be accredited. Accreditation is not the same as a shelter home sanction, but it is strong supporting evidence of the experience the scheme requires.

How to apply for the Shelter Home for Women scheme

1. Visit the Directorate of Women and Child Development, Old Education Department Building, 2nd Floor, 18th June Road, Panaji, Goa 403001, and request a hard copy of the proforma of the application form for the Shelter Home for Women scheme from the concerned authority.
2. Fill in all mandatory fields of the proforma, paste the passport-size photograph where the form asks for it and sign it across, and prepare the organisational details, registration, managing body, experience and premises.
3. Attach self-attested copies of all mandatory documents, including the registration certificate, audited accounts, premises papers, proposed staffing pattern with budget, and the organisation's bank details.
4. Submit the duly filled and signed form with the documents to the concerned authority at the Directorate, and collect the receipt or acknowledgement confirming successful submission.
5. Respond promptly to any clarification the Directorate seeks on the budget or the premises, since the salary and maintenance components are fixed on the basis of what the Directorate verifies.

How is the proposal processed and the grant released?

The Directorate scrutinises the proposal against the eligibility conditions; legal registration, managing body, experience and non-discrimination, and then works out the grant under the two published heads. The salary component is assessed against the posts the home actually needs, such as a superintendent, counsellor, caretaker and skill-training instructor. The maintenance expenditure covers the running costs of housing the residents.

Because the scheme funds recurring costs, sanctions are reviewed periodically and the release is tied to the organisation accounting for the previous grant. Keep utilisation certificates, salary registers and admission records ready; these are the papers most often called for at renewal.

How is the scheme monitored?

Goa notified a State Level Committee to monitor the Scheme of Shelter Homes for Women in the Official Gazette, Series I No. 25 dated 21 September 2006. Its composition, as printed in the Directorate's citizen charter, is:

1. Minister for Women and Child Development; Chairperson
2. Secretary (Women and Child Development), Member
3. Chairperson, Goa State Commission for Women — Member
4. District Magistrates of North and South Goa, Members
5. Superintendent of Police (Crime): Member
6. The NGO implementing the scheme, Member
7. Chairperson or Sarpanch of the Village Panchayat or Municipality in whose jurisdiction the shelter home is situated: Member
8. Director of Women and Child Development; Member

Including the local panchayat or municipal head is deliberate: it keeps the home connected to the ward it sits in, which matters for the safety of residents.

Why a proposal may be rejected

• No valid registration, an informal group or a lapsed society registration fails the first eligibility test outright.
• No demonstrated experience in women and child welfare, which the Directorate reads as the strongest predictor of whether a home can be run.
• Unsuitable premises; inadequate space for residence, counselling and skill training, or an insecure location.
• Incomplete accounts, audited statements missing, or the previous grant not accounted for.
• Discriminatory admission policy, which is a direct breach of the non-discrimination condition.
• Overlap with another scheme. A proposal that is really for a children's home should go under the children's welfare scheme, not this one.

Where to get help

• Directorate of Women and Child Development, Old Education Department Building, 2nd Floor, 18th June Road, Panaji, Goa 403001 to phone 0832-2235308 and 0832-2426112, help desk 0832-2231499, email dir-wcd.goa@nic.in.
• Goa State Commission for Women, whose Chairperson sits on the monitoring committee, for issues concerning the treatment of residents.
• The Child Welfare Committees and Victim Assistance Unit listed in the Directorate's citizen charter, where a case involves a child or a criminal complaint.

Women facing immediate danger should contact the police or the Directorate's help desk rather than wait for a scheme process; admission to a notified shelter home does not depend on any application under this scheme being filed.

How to check your Shelter Home for Women grant status

Shelter Home for Women runs entirely offline, so there is no portal login, application ID, or SMS tracking system for this grant. An applicant organisation has to follow up the way the process itself works: through the office that received the proposal.

For an organisation that has submitted a proposal:

1. Keep the acknowledgement or receipt collected at the time of submission. It is the only proof the Directorate has your proposal on file, and you will need to quote it (or the date and mode of submission) in every follow-up.
2. Call the Directorate of Women and Child Development at 0832-2235308 or 0832-2426112, or the help desk at 0832-2231499, and ask the concerned section to check the file status against your submission date.
3. If phone follow-up does not get a clear answer, visit the Directorate in person at the Old Education Department Building, 2nd Floor, 18th June Road, Panaji, Goa 403001, and ask the desk that handles shelter home proposals to check the physical file.
4. Email dir-wcd.goa@nic.in with your organisation's name, the date of submission, and a scanned copy of the acknowledgement if the office asks for it in writing.
5. Once a proposal is sanctioned, the Directorate deals with the organisation directly on release schedules and utilisation certificates; there is no separate status page for this, so the same phone or in-person channel is used for tracking each subsequent grant instalment too.

If the proposal is for grant renewal, status follow-up works the same way, except the Directorate's questions will typically be about the utilisation certificate, salary registers, and admission records for the previous grant period rather than the original eligibility documents. Having those papers ready when you call speeds up the check considerably.

There is no applicant helpline distinct from the numbers above, and no WhatsApp or SMS-based tracking has been notified for this scheme, so phone, email, or an in-person visit to the Directorate are the only real options.