Award of Opportunity Cost to Parents of Scheduled Caste Girl Students

What is the Opportunity Cost award for SC girl students in Puducherry?

The Award of Opportunity Cost to Parents of Scheduled Caste Girl Students is a cash payment made by the Adi Dravidar Welfare and Scheduled Tribes Welfare Department, Government of Puducherry, to the parent: not to the student: of a Scheduled Caste girl studying in classes VI to XII.

The Department states the objective directly: to financially assist Scheduled Caste parents for sending their daughters to school, when those daughters would otherwise earn a livelihood for the family by engaging themselves in menial labour. That is the economic logic the scheme's name captures. For a poor household, a teenage daughter in school is not merely a cost in fees and uniforms; she is income the family is not earning. The award puts a figure against that foregone income and pays it to the parent who bears it.

The rate is Rs 3,000 per academic year, payable to the SC parent for each daughter studying in classes VI to XII. A family with two eligible daughters therefore has two claims of Rs 3,000 each.

Two conditions define the scheme:

• No income limit. A Scheduled Caste family qualifies regardless of income.
• The student must have been promoted to the next higher class. The award is paid for a completed, successful year, not for enrolment alone.

The scheme is one head within the Adi Dravidar Welfare Department's students' welfare programme, which runs from the Retention Scholarship for SC and ST girl students in the primary classes, through the pre-matric scholarship for classes VI to X, to post-matric support, the Dr Ambedkar financial assistance for professional colleges, the ad-hoc merit grant, the Dr B.R. Ambedkar Memorial Award, hostels and vocational training.

Who is eligible for the opportunity cost award?

A parent can receive the award if:

• The family belongs to a Scheduled Caste, evidenced by a caste certificate from the competent revenue authority.
• The claim is for a daughter, the Department states the scheme is for girl students only.
• The daughter is studying in classes VI to XII in the Union Territory of Puducherry.
• The daughter has been promoted to the next higher class.
• The residence-cum-nativity certificate and the other enclosures the Department lists are available.

A parent is not eligible and cannot apply if:

• The family does not belong to a Scheduled Caste.
• The claim is for a son. Boys in the same classes are covered by the Award of Pre-matric Scholarship to SC students, which pays Rs 1,500 per annum in classes VI to VIII and Rs 2,500 per annum in classes IX and X.
• The daughter is below class VI or above class XII. Girls in the primary classes are covered by the Department's Retention Scholarship for SC and ST girl students; students beyond class XII fall under the post-matric scholarship and the professional college schemes.
• The daughter was not promoted to the next higher class in the year claimed.
• The family cannot produce a residence-cum-nativity certificate for the Union Territory.

No income limit is applied, so a family should not assume it is disqualified because a parent is in salaried work.

What documents are required?

How to apply for the opportunity cost award

1. Obtain the caste, income and residence-cum-nativity certificates from the competent revenue authority for your region; Puducherry, Karaikal, Mahe or Yanam. These take time and are the usual cause of a missed year, so start before the school circulates the form.
2. Wait for the promotion result. The award is paid for a year in which the daughter was promoted to the next higher class, so the mark statement or promotion record is part of the claim.
3. Collect the application form from the head of the institution where the daughter is studying. The Adi Dravidar Welfare Department states that all scholarship applications should be sent through the head of the institution.
4. Fill in the parent's details and the daughter's details, and attach proof of identity, the caste certificate, the income certificate, the residence-cum-nativity certificate, the promotion record, a copy of the bank passbook and a copy of the Aadhaar card. Because the award is payable to the parent, take care that the bank account named is the parent's.
5. Submit the application to the head of the institution for verification and signature, and let the institution forward it to the Adi Dravidar Welfare Department at Thattanchavady, Puducherry 9, or to the Assistant Director at Karaikal or Yanam for those regions.
6. File a separate application for each eligible daughter, since the award is Rs 3,000 per academic year for each daughter in classes VI to XII.
7. Follow up through the school during the year, and with the Deputy Director, Students Wing, on +91-413-2275631 if the school cannot trace the proposal.

How the payment works

The award is Rs 3,000 for one academic year, and it is paid per daughter. It is not a per-month allowance and not a reimbursement of school expenses, so no bills are required.

Because the money is directed at the parent rather than the student, the account details on the application should be the parent's, and a family that enters the daughter's student account risks a query. The Department's general practice for student welfare is to route the scholarship through the head of the school or institution where the student studies, so the school remains the point at which a sanctioned amount is traced.

The award is annual and not automatically renewed. A fresh application is needed for each academic year in which the daughter is promoted, all the way from class VI to class XII, and there is no carry-forward.

Why applications are rejected, and how to avoid it

• The daughter was not promoted. A detained year does not qualify, and the claim must wait for a successful year.
• The residence-cum-nativity certificate is missing or out of date.
• The caste certificate is a photocopy or is issued by an authority that is not competent.
• The application does not go through the head of the institution, and so never reaches the Department's list.
• The bank account named is the student's rather than the parent's, which does not match the scheme's design.
• A name mismatch between the caste certificate, the school record, the Aadhaar record and the bank account — a very common problem where certificates are issued in Tamil and school records kept in English.
• The family applies under the wrong head. A girl in the primary classes belongs under the Retention Scholarship, and one beyond class XII under the post-matric scholarship.

What else a Scheduled Caste family in Puducherry can claim

For the same daughter, the family can separately claim the Award of Pre-matric Scholarship to SC students: Rs 1,500 per annum in classes VI to VIII and Rs 2,500 per annum in classes IX and X, with no income limit and the same five-year nativity requirement, and, in the primary classes, the Grant of Retention Scholarship to SC girl students. Beyond school, the Department runs the Award of Post-matric Scholarship to SC students, the Grant of Dr Ambedkar Financial Assistance for students in professional colleges, an ad-hoc merit grant (special incentive), the Dr B.R. Ambedkar Memorial Award, reimbursement of college fees for the top twenty deserving Scheduled Caste students in professional colleges, a stipend of Rs 170 per month to SC trainees in government technical training institutions, boys' and girls' hostels, vocational training, and free special coaching for competitive examinations for SC and ST candidates in the Puducherry and Karaikal regions.

Every child in a government or government-aided school in Puducherry also receives, from the Directorate of School Education, two sets of uniform, textbooks, note books, footwear, a dictionary in class VIII, a geometry box, an atlas, stationery and, for class XII passouts, a laptop, all free of cost and irrespective of parental income, plus student bus travel at Re 1 per trip.

Outside education, the Adi Dravidar Welfare Department distributes free house sites, a house construction subsidy, financial assistance to poor SC pregnant and lactating women, marriage assistance for poor SC brides, dhotis and sarees, funeral rites assistance, assistance under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, sanitary latrine construction assistance and washing machines to SC families.

Where to raise a grievance

Questions go first to the head of the institution, then to the Deputy Director, Students Wing, Adi Dravidar Welfare Department, Thattanchavady, Puducherry 9, on +91-413-2275631. The Director's office numbers are +91-413-2275681, +91-413-2275682 and +91-413-2276375, email adwel.pon@nic.in. The Assistant Director at Karaikal is on +91-4368-222517 and at Yanam on +91-884-2324680. Grievances can also be filed through CPGRAMS at pgportal.gov.in.

There is no fee for the application, and no agent or middleman is involved at any stage.

How to check your application status

The Adi Dravidar Welfare Department does not run an online tracking portal for this award, so status checking is manual and school-routed rather than a website login.

1. Ask the head of the institution first. Because every application is submitted through the school or college, the institution is the first place that knows whether the form was forwarded to the Department, and it usually holds a copy of the acknowledgement or dispatch register entry.
2. Check with the school after the promotion result is out, since the Department cannot process a claim until it has proof the daughter was promoted to the next higher class; a delay at this stage is often simply the school waiting on the mark statement, not a lost application.
3. Call the Deputy Director, Students Wing at the Adi Dravidar Welfare Department on +91-413-2275631 if the school is unable to trace the proposal or cannot say whether it reached Thattanchavady. Have the daughter's name, class, school name and the academic year ready when calling.
4. For Karaikal or Yanam cases, follow up with the Assistant Director for that region (+91-4368-222517 for Karaikal, +91-884-2324680 for Yanam) instead of the Puducherry office, since applications from those regions are processed locally.
5. If the helpline and the school both draw a blank, escalate in writing to the Director's office (+91-413-2275681 / 2275682 / 2276375, email adwel.pon@nic.in) with the daughter's details and the date the school says it forwarded the form.
6. As a last resort, file a grievance on CPGRAMS (pgportal.gov.in), naming the Adi Dravidar Welfare Department, Puducherry, and stating the academic year and school; CPGRAMS grievances carry a tracking number that can itself be checked online, unlike the scholarship application.

Because payment goes to the parent's bank account rather than the student's, a family that has confirmed the application was received should also watch the parent's account for the credit rather than expecting a separate notification letter, since the Department's practice for this kind of award is to disburse without a formal sanction memo sent to the family.