Maternity Assistance Scheme - Gujarat Labour Welfare Board

What is the Maternity Assistance Scheme of the Gujarat Labour Welfare Board?

Maternity Assistance Scheme is a welfare benefit run by the Gujarat Labour Welfare Board, a statutory body under the Labour, Skill Development and Employment Department, Government of Gujarat. The Board lists it on its site as the "Maternity Aid-Benefit and Beti Bachao Scheme", and it is widely searched in Gujarati as Prasuti Sahay Yojana.

According to the Gujarat Labour Welfare Board's own scheme page, the benefit is a one-time payment of Rs 10,000 paid when a delivery takes place in the family of a covered worker. The Board states the money is intended for medical expenses, hospital charges and nutritive diet expenses — the three costs that hit a wage-earning household hardest in the weeks around childbirth.

The Gujarat Labour Welfare Board runs on the Labour Welfare Fund. Factories, shops and establishments covered by the Gujarat Labour Welfare Fund Act deduct a small contribution from each worker, add the employer's share, and deposit it with the Board twice a year. Every scheme the Board runs — maternity aid, full medical checkup, educational awards, cycle subsidy, home loan interest subsidy — is financed from that pooled fund. This is why the single most important eligibility test is not income but whether your establishment's Labour Welfare Fund contribution has actually been deposited.

Key features

• One-time cash assistance of Rs 10,000 per delivery.
• Available to a female worker herself, or to the wife of a male worker.
• Restricted to Gujarat's organised sector — factories and establishments registered under the Labour Welfare Fund.
• Requires one year of continuous service with the same establishment.
• Must be claimed within one year of the date of delivery.
• Applied for online through the Board's Sanman Portal.

Who is eligible for the Gujarat Labour Welfare Board maternity benefit?

You can claim if all of the following are true:

• You work in the organised sector in Gujarat — a factory, company or establishment covered by the Gujarat Labour Welfare Fund.
• You have completed one year of continuous employment with that establishment.
• Your Labour Welfare Fund contribution has been deposited with the Board for that period.
• You are either the female worker who delivered, or a male worker claiming for his wife's delivery.
• The claim is being filed within 12 months of the delivery date.
• You hold a bank account in your own name for the transfer.

You cannot apply / are not eligible if:

• You are self-employed or work in the unorganised sector. The Labour Welfare Fund does not cover home-based workers, street vendors, domestic workers or agricultural labour, so there is no contribution record to verify.
• You are a registered construction worker. Construction workers in Gujarat are covered by the separate Gujarat Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board (GBOCWWB), which runs its own, larger maternity benefit against an e-Nirman card. Applying to the wrong board is the most common wasted application in this category.
• Your establishment has not paid its Labour Welfare Fund dues. The Board verifies the contribution before sanction; unpaid dues stop the claim even when the worker has done nothing wrong.
• You have less than one year of continuous service, including a break in service that resets the count.
• The delivery took place more than one year before the application date.
• You are a government employee outside the Labour Welfare Fund's coverage, or you are claiming for a delivery for which the Rs 10,000 has already been drawn by the other spouse.

Gujarat does not publish an income ceiling for this scheme. The qualifying test is the employment and contribution record, not household income.

What documents are required for the Gujarat maternity assistance?

Scan every document as a clear PDF or JPG before you start. The Sanman Portal upload boxes reject blurred phone photographs and files above the size limit shown next to each box.

How to apply for the Gujarat maternity assistance scheme online

1. Open the Sanman Portal at sanman.gujarat.gov.in, the Gujarat Labour Welfare Board's online application system, linked from the Board's site at glwb.gujarat.gov.in.
2. On the home page, go to the Citizen Login tab and click "Please Register Here" if you are a first-time user.
3. Register by entering your Aadhaar number, selecting your user type, and entering your Labour Welfare Fund account number. Verify the OTP sent to your mobile number and set a password.
4. Log in with your new credentials and open the scheme list. Select the Maternity Assistance Scheme (shown by the Board as Maternity Aid-Benefit and Beti Bachao).
5. Fill the application form — worker details, establishment name and registration number, date of delivery, and bank account with IFSC code.
6. Upload the scanned documents: birth certificate, medical certificate, employer service certificate, Aadhaar and bank passbook.
7. Submit the form and save the acknowledgement or reference number shown on screen. Print or screenshot it — this number is what you quote in every follow-up.
8. Track the application from the same login using the application status option, and respond quickly if the Board raises a query.

How to apply offline if the portal does not work

1. Visit the Gujarat Labour Welfare Board office at Shramyogi Kalyan Bhavan, G Colony, opposite the water tank, Sukhramnagar, Ahmedabad 380021, or your district's Labour Welfare Board regional office.
2. Ask for the maternity assistance claim form and fill it in with the establishment's Labour Welfare Fund details.
3. Get the form countersigned by your employer or the establishment's welfare officer, confirming one year of continuous service.
4. Attach photocopies of the birth certificate, medical certificate, Aadhaar, bank passbook and LWF details, and submit the file at the counter.
5. Collect the stamped receipt. Without it you have no proof of the filing date, which matters because the one-year limit is strict.

Many establishments in Gujarat file these claims in a batch through their HR or welfare officer. Ask your employer first — if the company already does this, you only have to hand over your documents.

How much benefit does the scheme provide and when is it paid?

The Gujarat Labour Welfare Board scheme page states the assistance is Rs 10,000, paid once per delivery. It is not a monthly benefit and it is not linked to wages, so a worker earning Rs 12,000 a month and one earning Rs 30,000 a month receive the same amount.

Payment is made to the bank account entered in the application after the Board verifies the employment record, the contribution status and the delivery documents. The Board does not publish a guaranteed processing time. In practice, claims move faster when the employer's contribution is already recorded against the establishment and the birth certificate matches the name spellings in Aadhaar.

The Rs 10,000 under this scheme is separate from — and much smaller than — the maternity benefit paid by the Gujarat Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board to registered construction workers. A household should check which board it is registered with before assuming an amount.

How to check your maternity assistance application status

1. Log in to sanman.gujarat.gov.in with the Aadhaar number and password you registered with.
2. Open the application status or "My Applications" section.
3. Enter or select your application reference number.
4. Read the current stage — submitted, under scrutiny, query raised, sanctioned or paid.

If a query is shown, upload the corrected document from the same screen rather than filing a fresh application. A duplicate application usually gets rejected and puts you back at the end of the queue. For status questions the Board's toll-free number 1800-233-1961 is the fastest route, and the Board also runs an e-Seva grievance system at glwbcrm.gujarat.gov.in.

Common reasons maternity claims are rejected

• Application filed after one year from the date of delivery.
• Employer's Labour Welfare Fund contribution not deposited for the qualifying period, so the Board cannot confirm coverage.
• Less than one year of continuous service, or a service break that resets the qualifying period.
• Name mismatch between Aadhaar, the bank account and the birth certificate — a very common cause after marriage, when the surname changes in one record but not the others.
• Wrong board — a construction worker applying to the Labour Welfare Board instead of GBOCWWB.
• Illegible uploads, especially handwritten hospital certificates photographed at an angle.
• Duplicate claim for the same delivery by both spouses.

Fix a name mismatch at source before re-applying: update the bank record or the Aadhaar record so that all three documents carry the identical name.

Where to raise a grievance

• Toll-free helpline: 1800-233-1961
• Board office: 079-22773303 to 06, Shramyogi Kalyan Bhavan, Sukhramnagar, Ahmedabad 380021
• Email: glwb1961 at gmail dot com
• e-Seva grievance portal: glwbcrm.gujarat.gov.in

Applying under this scheme is free. No agent, consultant or middleman can charge you to "get the Rs 10,000 sanctioned", and no officer of the Board will ask for your Sanman Portal OTP or password.