Snehapoorvam Scheme

What is the Snehapoorvam scheme?

Snehapoorvam is a scheme of the Kerala Social Security Mission (KSSM), a charitable society sponsored by the Social Justice Department, Government of Kerala, headquartered at Poojappura, Thiruvananthapuram. Snehapoorvam provides monthly financial assistance for the education of orphaned and half-orphaned children who continue to live within a family setting.

According to the Kerala Social Security Mission, Snehapoorvam was launched because roughly 75,000 children below 18 years live in orphanages in Kerala, spread across around 1,500 orphanages, and yet 80 to 90 per cent of the children in those orphanages actually have families and relatives. The scheme attacks that gap directly: rather than fund institutions, Snehapoorvam funds the family, so that a child who has lost a parent does not also have to lose the home.

The transliterated Malayalam name Snehapoorvam, meaning "with love", is how most families and schools refer to the scheme, and it is used interchangeably with the official English title in KSSM circulars.

The objectives KSSM states for the scheme are:

• To identify orphaned children living in the community.
• To assess and prioritise the children in greatest need.
• To provide social protection to highly vulnerable groups of orphans by strengthening traditional family and community systems that protect and absorb orphans.
• To improve the basic education, social integration and nutrition of the most vulnerable orphans towards the level of other children in the community.
• To encourage families to keep their children within the family set-up rather than sending them to orphanages.
• To extend a helping hand to these families by providing financial assistance for the education of the children.

Who is eligible for Snehapoorvam?

A child can receive Snehapoorvam if:

• The child has lost either the father or the mother, or both.
• The child is a student from first standard up to degree classes, or is a child below 5 years.
• The child belongs to a BPL family, or
• The child belongs to an APL family whose annual income is below Rs 20,000 in a rural area (local body or grama panchayat) or below Rs 22,375 in an urban area (corporation or municipality).
• The child is a resident of Kerala and is studying in a government or aided institution through which the application can be routed.

A child is not eligible if:

• Both parents are alive. Financial hardship alone, without the loss of a parent, does not qualify a child under Snehapoorvam.
• The child is living in an orphanage or childcare institution rather than in a family, with relatives, with friends or on community support. Snehapoorvam exists specifically to keep children out of institutions, so an institutional inmate cannot apply under it.
• The family is APL and its annual income exceeds Rs 20,000 (rural) or Rs 22,375 (urban).
• The child has completed a degree or professional degree course, since the scheme's ladder of rates stops at degree level.

How much does Snehapoorvam pay?

Snehapoorvam pays a monthly amount that rises with the stage of study, exactly as published by the Kerala Social Security Mission:

Over a full school year, the rates work out to roughly Rs 3,600 for a primary school child, Rs 6,000 for a high school child, Rs 9,000 in higher secondary and Rs 12,000 for a degree student. The step-up is automatic in design but not automatic in practice, the annual application is what tells KSSM which class the child is now in, so a child who moves from class V to class VI without a fresh application can continue to be paid at the lower rate.

What documents are required for Snehapoorvam?

How to apply for Snehapoorvam

1. Collect the Snehapoorvam application form from the head of the government or aided school or college where the child studies, or from the Application Forms section of the Kerala Social Security Mission website.
2. Fill in the form and attach the death certificate of the deceased parent, the BPL ration card or income certificate, the bonafide certificate, the child's bank passbook copy and Aadhaar.
3. Submit the completed application to the head of the aided or government institution before 31 October of that year. This is the operative deadline — an application handed in after 31 October is normally held over to the next year.
4. The head of the institution verifies the application and the supporting documents, and submits it through the online portal to the Executive Director, Kerala Social Security Mission.
5. For a child below 5 years, skip the school route entirely and apply directly to the Executive Director, Kerala Social Security Mission through the respective Child Welfare Committee.
6. Follow up with the head of the institution for the sanction status, and check that the child's bank account is active so the monthly credit does not bounce.

Note the shape of this process: the family never files online itself. The online submission is done by the institution, which means the single most useful thing a guardian can do is confirm with the head teacher or principal that the application was actually uploaded, not merely received.

Why do Snehapoorvam applications get rejected?

• Missed the 31 October cut-off, which is the most common reason of all.
• Income certificate above the APL limit of Rs 20,000 rural or Rs 22,375 urban, or an income certificate that has expired.
• Death certificate not attached, or the name on it not matching the parent's name in the school record.
• Institution did not upload the verified application even though the family submitted it on time.
• Bank account details wrong or the account dormant, so the monthly credit fails and the case is flagged.
• Child is an inmate of an orphanage, which puts the case outside the scheme's design.

Most of these are correctable for the next cycle. A wrong bank account or a name mismatch can usually be fixed mid-year by taking the corrected documents back to the head of the institution, who can forward the correction to KSSM.

Where do you get help with Snehapoorvam?

• Kerala Social Security Mission, Poojappura, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala 695012
• Phone: 0471-2341200 (fax 0471-2346016)
• Email: socialsecuritymission@gmail.com
• Website: socialsecuritymission.gov.in, which carries the Application Forms, GO's and Orders, RTI and Contact sections
• For a child below 5 years, the District Child Welfare Committee is the first point of contact

For children who are actually in institutional care rather than family care, the Social Justice Department runs separate programmes, and the Child Welfare Committee is the right body to advise on which route fits a particular child. Snehapoorvam applications are free; no fee is payable to any agent, and the head of the institution submits the online application at no cost to the family.