Ganga Swarupa Punah Lagna Arthik Sahay Scheme

What is the Ganga Swarupa Punah Lagna Arthik Sahay Scheme?

Ganga Swarupa Punah Lagna Arthik Sahay Scheme is a one-time grant run by the Women and Child Development Department of the Government of Gujarat through the Commissioner of Women and Child Development. The Gujarati name translates as "Ganga Swarupa remarriage financial assistance", and "Ganga Swarupa" is the respectful term Gujarat uses in place of the word for widow across its welfare schemes.

Ganga Swarupa Punah Lagna Arthik Sahay Scheme pays Rs 50,000 to a widow who is already drawing the Ganga Swarupa monthly pension and who remarries. The grant is split in two halves of Rs 25,000: one half is transferred by Direct Benefit Transfer into her own savings bank account, and the other half is issued as National Savings Certificates in her name.

The design tells you what the department is trying to do. Widow remarriage in much of India still carries a social cost, and the widow who remarries loses her pension the moment she does so. Ganga Swarupa Punah Lagna Arthik Sahay Scheme turns that cliff edge into a payment: the state stops the monthly Rs 1,250 pension and hands over a lump sum instead, half of it locked into an instrument that stays in her name rather than the new household's.

Key features

• One-time payment. There is no annual or monthly component.
• Rs 25,000 by DBT and Rs 25,000 in NSCs, a fixed split with no option to take the whole amount in cash.
• Administered by the Women and Child Development Department, contactable at Block No. 9, 8th Floor, New Sachivalaya, Gandhinagar, phone 079-232-57942.
• Available only to existing Ganga Swarupa pension beneficiaries, which makes the pension record the gateway document.
• Age band of 18 to 50 years at the time of remarriage.

Who is eligible for the Ganga Swarupa remarriage assistance?

A woman qualifies if all of the following hold:

• She is a widow whose first husband's death is supported by a death certificate.
• She is aged between 18 and 50 years at the time of the remarriage.
• She is an existing beneficiary of the Ganga Swarupa pension scheme, the Gujarat widow pension that pays Rs 1,250 a month.
• She has remarried, and the new marriage is registered with a marriage certificate.
• She is a resident of Gujarat.

Who cannot apply

• A widow who was never sanctioned the Ganga Swarupa pension is not eligible for this grant. The scheme is written as a follow-on benefit, not a standalone remarriage incentive, so the pension sanction is a precondition rather than a convenience.
• A woman aged 51 or above at remarriage cannot apply.
• A woman below 18 cannot apply, and a marriage below 18 is in any case void of legal effect under the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act.
• A woman who is separated or divorced but not widowed is not eligible under this scheme, because the Ganga Swarupa pension itself rests on widowhood.
• A woman resident outside Gujarat cannot apply, even where the marriage itself takes place in Gujarat.
• A woman who has already drawn this grant once cannot draw it a second time; it is a once-in-a-lifetime payment.

The department does not impose a fresh income test at this stage. The income screen has already happened: a widow enters the Ganga Swarupa pension only if her family income is within Rs 1,20,000 a year in rural areas or Rs 1,50,000 a year in urban areas. Everyone eligible for the remarriage grant has therefore already cleared an income test once.

What documents are required?

Register the marriage before applying. A temple ceremony or a community gathering, however well attended, is not what the file needs — the case turns on a marriage certificate issued under the Gujarat Registration of Marriages Act, obtained from the Registrar of Marriages at the municipality or the Taluka level.

How to apply for the Ganga Swarupa Punah Lagna Arthik Sahay Scheme

1. Register the remarriage with the Registrar of Marriages and collect the marriage certificate. Allow a few weeks for issue.
2. Collect the Ganga Swarupa pension record — the sanction order, pension payment order number, or a bank statement showing the monthly Rs 1,250 credit. Without this the case cannot be linked to the parent scheme.
3. Visit the Taluka Mamlatdar's office or the District Women and Child Development Officer, whichever sanctioned the original pension, and ask for the Ganga Swarupa Punah Lagna Arthik Sahay application form.
4. Fill the form with your name, the first husband's details, the pension sanction reference, the remarriage date and certificate number, and your own savings account number for the DBT half.
5. Attach self-attested copies of all the mandatory documents listed above, and carry the originals for verification at the counter.
6. Submit the file and take a stamped receipt with the inward number and date. This number is the only way to trace the case later.
7. Follow up after four to six weeks at the same office. Once sanctioned, Rs 25,000 is credited to the bank account and the NSCs for the remaining Rs 25,000 are issued and handed over or posted.

How to apply in a rural area

1. Approach the Village Computer Entrepreneur at your Gram Panchayat, who handles the digital entry for most Gujarat welfare schemes and can tell you which office in your taluka is currently accepting the form.
2. Have the VCE scan and upload your documents where the district uses a digital workflow, and collect a printout of what was entered.
3. Submit the physical file at the Taluka Mamlatdar's office and take the receipt. Rural cases are still sanctioned on the physical file in most districts.

How much does the scheme pay and when?

Ganga Swarupa Punah Lagna Arthik Sahay Scheme pays a total of Rs 50,000, once. The DBT half of Rs 25,000 arrives in the savings account after the sanction order is issued. The National Savings Certificates for the other Rs 25,000 are purchased in the beneficiary's name and issued separately, so the two halves rarely arrive on the same day. A beneficiary who receives the bank credit should not assume the NSC half has been forgotten — ask the district office for the certificate numbers.

The monthly Ganga Swarupa pension of Rs 1,250 stops from the month of the remarriage. Applicants sometimes discover the pension has stopped before the grant has arrived, which is a timing gap and not an error in the file.

Why do applications get delayed or rejected?

• No registered marriage certificate, only a ceremony. This is the most common single cause.
• No traceable Ganga Swarupa pension record, especially where the pension was sanctioned years earlier and the sanction order has been lost. Ask the Mamlatdar's office to retrieve the pension payment order number from its register.
• Age outside the 18 to 50 band on the date of remarriage.
• Bank account not in the applicant's sole name, or not Aadhaar-seeded, so the DBT credit fails.
• Name mismatch between the marriage certificate, Aadhaar and the bank record. After remarriage many women change their surname, and the bank record must be updated before the DBT half can land.
• Application filed in the wrong district, where the couple has moved. File in the district that holds the pension record, not the district of the new home.

Where do I complain if the grant does not arrive?

• District Women and Child Development Officer is the first level for a delayed sanction or a missing NSC.
• Commissioner, Women and Child Development, Gujarat, Block No. 9, 8th Floor, New Sachivalaya, Gandhinagar, phone 079-232-57942, handles escalations.
• Taluka Mamlatdar is the right office for a dispute about the underlying Ganga Swarupa pension record rather than the grant itself.

No fee is payable at any stage of Ganga Swarupa Punah Lagna Arthik Sahay Scheme. The grant is a state entitlement and no officer, agent or middleman may charge for filing, sanctioning or releasing it.