Financial Assistance to the Family of Temple Employees

What is Financial Assistance to the Family of Temple Employees?

Financial Assistance to the Family of Temple Employees is a scheme of the Hindu Religious Institutions and Wakf Department, Union Territory of Puducherry. The scheme grants financial assistance to the family of a temple employee who expires while in service, and is made up of two separate components:

• Rs 5,000 under the Group Insurance Scheme.
• Rs 20,000 from the Chief Minister's Welfare Fund.

The combined assistance is Rs 25,000, and it is intended to meet the immediate costs a family faces in the days after a death; funeral expenses, outstanding medical bills, and the sudden loss of a monthly wage.

The department administers the temples and religious endowments notified under the Union Territory's law on Hindu religious institutions. The people covered by this scheme are the temples' own staff: archakas and priests, sthanikas, office and accounts staff, cleaners, garland-makers, watchmen, musicians and other employees who are on a temple's payroll rather than a government one. Because temple employment sits outside the government service pension structure, a death in service leaves a family with no departmental death benefit at all, which is the gap this scheme fills.

Key features

• Rs 5,000 from the Group Insurance Scheme.
• Rs 20,000 from the Chief Minister's Welfare Fund.
• Applies only where the death occurred while the employee was in service.
• Claimed on two prescribed forms, Annexure V and Annexure VI.
• Endorsement by the temple authority is mandatory.
• Applications go to the Commissioner, Hindu Religious Institutions, Puducherry.

Who is eligible for this assistance?

You can apply if:

• You are a family member of a deceased employee of a temple administered under the Hindu Religious Institutions and Wakf Department, Puducherry.
• The temple employee died while in service.
• The claim is endorsed by the temple authority, the Special Officer or Executive Officer, or the President or Board of Trustees.
• You can produce the death certificate and a service certificate from the temple.

You cannot apply if:

• The employee died after retirement, resignation or termination. The condition is death while in service, and a post-service death is not eligible under this head.
• The deceased was not a temple employee — a devotee, a contractor, a hereditary trustee or a volunteer does not qualify.
• The temple is not one administered under the Hindu Religious Institutions and Wakf Department, Puducherry.
• The application is not endorsed by the temple authority. An unendorsed form cannot be processed however complete the rest of it is.
• You cannot establish that you are a family member of the deceased.

How much is paid, and from which fund?

The assistance comes from two distinct sources, and both must be claimed:

Because they are separate, they use separate prescribed forms; Annexure V for the Group Insurance component and Annexure VI for the Chief Minister's Welfare Fund component, and they may be sanctioned and credited at different times. Do not assume the claim has failed because only one credit has appeared.

How to apply for financial assistance to a temple employee's family

1. Print or collect both prescribed forms. Take a printout of the application form for the Group Insurance Scheme (Annexure V) and the form for financial assistance from the Chief Minister's Welfare Fund (Annexure VI), both of which are published in the department's Citizen's Charter at hri.py.gov.in. Alternatively, request hard copies from the concerned authority at the temple.
2. Fill in all mandatory fields and attach the documents. Complete both forms and attach copies of the death certificate, the service certificate from the temple, proof of relationship or a legal heir certificate, and the claimant's bank passbook. The forms also require the signatures and addresses of two witnesses. Note that the Group Insurance form carries the temple employee's own signature, which means the enrolment paperwork is normally initiated during the employee's lifetime, check with the temple office whether this was done.
3. Get the application endorsed by the temple. The Special Officer or Executive Officer, or the President or Board of Trustees of the temple, must endorse the application. Build this step into your timeline; it is where most files stall.
4. Add the declaration. Include the declaration stating that the particulars given are true and that the family is eligible for assistance from the Chief Minister's Welfare Fund.
5. Submit to the Commissioner. Send or deliver the completed and endorsed forms with all enclosures to The Commissioner, Hindu Religious Institutions, Puducherry.
6. Keep a copy and an acknowledgement. Retain a photocopy of everything you submit and ask for a written acknowledgement, since there is no online tracking for this scheme.

How do I follow up on the claim?

The Hindu Religious Institutions and Wakf Department does not publish an online status tracker for this assistance. In practice:

• Start at the temple. The Executive Officer or Special Officer who endorsed the application can tell you when the file was forwarded and under what reference.
• Then the Commissioner's office. Follow up with the office of the Commissioner, Hindu Religious Institutions, Puducherry, quoting the temple's forwarding reference.
• Use the RTI route if the file goes quiet. The department publishes its list of Public Information Officers and its decision-making process document at hri.py.gov.in, both of which are useful when a claim has been pending for months.

Why do claims fail?

• Death after leaving service. The condition is unambiguous, and a claim for a retired employee cannot succeed under this head.
• No endorsement from the temple authority. The single most common procedural failure.
• Only one form submitted. Families frequently file Annexure VI for the Rs 20,000 and forget Annexure V for the Rs 5,000, or the reverse.
• Employee never enrolled in the Group Insurance Scheme. Because the form carries the employee's signature, a claim for the insurance component is difficult where the enrolment was never completed. The Chief Minister's Welfare Fund component may still be available.
• No witnesses. Both forms require two witnesses with addresses.
• Relationship not documented. Obtain a legal heir certificate from the Revenue Department where the ration card does not establish the relationship.
• Death certificate delay. Register the death promptly; nothing moves without the certificate.

Are there any deadlines?

The department has not published a fixed claim window for this assistance. Applications are received as deaths occur. That said, treat it as urgent: the endorsement chain runs through the temple and then the Commissioner's office, and a claim that begins months after the death is harder to substantiate, as witnesses disperse and the temple's own records move on.

How do I raise a grievance?

• The Commissioner, Hindu Religious Institutions, Puducherry, is the authority to whom the application is addressed and the first point for a grievance.
• The temple's Special Officer or Executive Officer, or the President or Board of Trustees, for delays at the endorsement stage.
• Public Information Officers of the department, whose list is published at hri.py.gov.in, for a formal RTI application where a file is stalled.
• Central portal: pgportal.gov.in.

A dedicated telephone helpline for this scheme is not published on the department's website, so use the Commissioner's office and the temple authority as the working contact points.