Goa Village & Municipal Child Committee Grants And Awards Scheme

What is the Goa Village & Municipal Child Committee Grants and Awards Scheme?

Goa Village & Municipal Child Committee Grants and Awards Scheme 2014, commonly abbreviated GVMCCGS, is a grant scheme of the Directorate of Women and Child Development, Government of Goa. It covers all the Village and Municipal Child Committees set up under Rule 7 of The Goa Children's Homes Rules, 2004 by local bodies, in accordance with the provisions of those rules.

The scheme's logic is worth stating plainly, because it is unusual. Goa's children's rules require every Panchayat and Municipality to constitute a Child Committee at the local level. A body that sits close enough to the ground to notice a child out of school, a child at risk in the home, or a child in need of care and protection, and to escalate it. Rules alone do not make such committees meet. GVMCCGS attaches money to the requirement: a small annual grant for the administrative cost of actually running the Committee, and a separate award for the Committee that runs best in each taluka.

The Directorate began inviting applications from local bodies from the year 2015-16 onwards.

Who is eligible for the Child Committee grant?

Your local body can apply if:

• The applicant is the concerned local body, a Village Panchayat or a Municipal local body.
• The local body has established a Village or Municipal Child Committee as prescribed under Rule 7 of The Goa Children's Homes Rules, 2004.
• The Committee has met at least once in the last three months prior to submission of the application, to discuss and resolve issues relating to children within the jurisdiction of the local body.
• The local body that promoted the Committee provides space for the Committee's sittings in its own premises as and when required.
• The Committee has been functioning and carrying on its work satisfactorily.

You cannot apply, or are not eligible, if:

• You are an individual, a parent, a child, a social worker or a member of the Committee applying personally. This is a grant to local bodies, and there is no citizen application under it.
• You are an NGO or a voluntary organisation. The applicant must be the Panchayat or Municipality.
• The local body has not constituted a Child Committee under Rule 7.
• The Committee has not met in the last three months before the application.
• The Committee is constituted on paper but not functioning. The grant is for a committee that is "functioning and carrying on its work satisfactorily", and the application must be supported by documents showing its activities.
• The local body does not provide space for the Committee's sittings in its premises.

What does the scheme pay?

There are two separate payments under GVMCCGS, and it is easy to confuse them.

The grant; Rs 10,000 a year. A local body that has set up a Child Committee under Rule 7, where that Committee has been functioning and carrying on its work satisfactorily, is eligible for an annual financial grant of Rs 10,000 towards administrative expenses incurred on organising the activities of the Committee.

• The grant is released in a single instalment within three months.
• The Director, Women and Child Development is the competent sanctioning authority for these grants.
• All payments are made only through electronic transfer in favour of the local body concerned.

The award — Rs 10,000 per taluka. Separately, the Directorate invites applications supported by documents showing the activities of the Child Committee, and a Selection Committee adjudges the best performing Child Committee for each taluka and recommends it for release of an award of Rs 10,000 each.

The award is not guaranteed. If the Selection Committee does not find any Committee worth giving the award to in a taluka, no award is given in that taluka that year.

Who sits on the Selection Committee. It is chaired by the Secretary (WCD), with the Director, WCD as its Member Secretary, along with two social workers nominated by the Government.

What documents are required?

How to apply for the Child Committee grant

1. Confirm the Child Committee is constituted under Rule 7 of The Goa Children's Homes Rules, 2004. If the local body has not set one up, that comes first; the grant follows the Committee, not the other way round.
2. Hold a Committee meeting within three months of applying, and minute it properly. The meeting must be about discussing and resolving issues relating to children within the local body's jurisdiction, and the minutes are the evidence that it happened.
3. Watch for the Directorate's press note inviting applications. The prescribed application format is made available at the time the press note is released.
4. Pass a resolution of the body. For a Village Panchayat, the proposal is signed by its Secretary along with the resolution of the Panchayat Body. For a Municipality, the proposal is signed by its Chief Executive along with the resolution of the body.
5. Get the Block Development Officer's recommendation if you are a Village Panchayat. The proposal must be duly recommended by the concerned BDO. A Municipality does not need this step and submits directly.
6. Compile the supporting documents showing the activities of the Child Committee; meeting minutes, records of issues taken up and resolved, programmes organised, and any collaboration with Anganwadi workers, NGOs or schools.
7. Submit the complete proposal to the Director, Directorate of Women and Child Development, 2nd Floor, Old Education Building, 18th June Road, Altinho, Panaji, Goa 403001.
8. File within six months from the commencement of the financial year. This is the stated deadline for the grant application.

What does the Committee actually have to do?

The scheme's own conditions and the wider Directorate framework indicate that a functioning Child Committee is expected to be networked rather than isolated. The Directorate's citizen charter notes that Child Committees, Anganwadi workers, NGOs and the media can be enlisted in the child protection effort at the local level.

For a Panchayat or Municipality building a case for both the grant and the taluka award, the practical implication is that the record of activity should show the Committee convening others, not simply sitting. Meeting minutes that record issues raised, referrals made, and follow-up done are worth considerably more at selection than minutes that record attendance alone.

How is the money released?

The Director, Women and Child Development is the competent sanctioning authority. Once sanctioned, the grant is released in a single instalment within three months, and only through electronic transfer in favour of the local body concerned. There is no cash or cheque route, so the local body's bank details must be correct and current.

For the award, the Selection Committee scrutinises the applications and supporting activity documents, adjudges the best performing Child Committee for each taluka, and recommends release of the Rs 10,000 award.

Why do applications fail?

• The Committee has not met in the last three months. This is a specific, checkable condition and it is the most common gap.
• No resolution of the Panchayat Body or Municipal body accompanying the proposal.
• No Block Development Officer recommendation on a Village Panchayat proposal.
• Application filed after six months from the start of the financial year.
• No documents showing the activities of the Committee, so neither the "functioning satisfactorily" condition nor the award assessment can be made out.
• The local body does not provide space for the Committee's sittings in its premises.
• Wrong applicant, the Committee, an NGO or an individual applying instead of the local body.
• Bank details incorrect, which stalls an otherwise sanctioned electronic transfer.

Where do I complain?

The Director, Directorate of Women and Child Development, Government of Goa, 2nd Floor, Old Education Building, 18th June Road, Altinho, Panaji, Goa 403001, is the sanctioning authority and the first point of contact for a Panchayat or Municipality whose grant has not been released within three months of sanction.

Above the Directorate sits the Secretary (Women and Child Development), who chairs the Selection Committee for the taluka awards. The Government of Goa's public grievance route at goa.gov.in is the general escalation path where the Directorate's response is unsatisfactory.

Practical points

• The grant and the award are different things. The Rs 10,000 grant is an entitlement-style payment for a functioning Committee; the Rs 10,000 award is competitive and only one Committee per taluka gets it.
• Keep the minute book current. Both payments turn on documentary evidence of activity, and reconstructing a year of committee work at application time rarely convinces a Selection Committee.
• Panchayats need the BDO in the loop early. The recommendation is a mandatory part of the proposal, and BDO offices work to their own timelines.
• Apply in the first half of the financial year. The six-month window from the commencement of the financial year is the operative deadline.
• A taluka can go unawarded. If no Committee in a taluka is judged worthy, no award is given there at all, which also means a modest but well-documented Committee in a quiet taluka has a real chance.

How to check your application status

GVMCCGS has no online portal or application-tracking number. Since the applicant is always a Panchayat Secretary or a Municipal Chief Executive rather than an individual citizen, status has to be tracked the way most local-body correspondence with a Directorate is tracked: through the office, not through a website.

1. Note the outward number and date the local body's office gave the proposal when it was dispatched to the Director, Directorate of Women and Child Development, Panaji. This is the only reference the Directorate's own office will be able to trace the file against; without it, a status query just becomes a fresh search through incoming registers.
2. For a Village Panchayat, check with the Block Development Officer's office first. Since a Panchayat's proposal must carry the BDO's recommendation before it reaches the Directorate, a proposal that seems to be taking long is often still sitting at the BDO stage rather than at the Directorate. Confirm the BDO has forwarded it before escalating further.
3. Call or write to the Directorate of Women and Child Development at its Panaji office (2nd Floor, Old Education Building, 18th June Road, Altinho, Panaji, Goa 403001), quoting the outward number, the name of the Panchayat or Municipality, and the financial year the proposal relates to. The Directorate does not publish a dedicated helpline for this scheme, so this is a general office query addressed to the section handling Child Committee grants.
4. Ask specifically whether the file has been sanctioned by the Director, since sanction is the trigger for release. A "sanctioned" file that has not yet been paid should be followed up separately on the electronic transfer, since payment depends on the local body's bank details being correctly recorded.
5. If the grant was sanctioned but not credited within three months, raise this in writing with the Director's office, referencing the sanction and the three-month release timeline the scheme itself specifies. A local body is on firmer ground demanding a status update once it can point to that internal deadline having passed.
6. For the taluka award, status has a different shape: there is no individual "approved or rejected" outcome to chase, since the Selection Committee only names one winning Committee per taluka, or none at all. A Panchayat or Municipality that does not hear back after the award round should check with the Directorate whether any Committee in its taluka was selected that year, rather than assuming its own application was rejected.
7. Keep a copy of everything submitted. Because there is no portal to log back into and review a submission, the local body's own file copy, complete with the resolution, BDO recommendation, and activity documents, is what any follow-up conversation with the Directorate will be checked against.