Maternity Assistance Scheme (Puducherry Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board)

What is the Maternity Assistance Scheme of the Puducherry construction workers board?

The Maternity Assistance Scheme is a welfare benefit of the Puducherry Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board, a statutory board under the Labour Department, Government of Puducherry. The Labour Department constituted the Board in 2002 under the Building and Other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1996, and it is funded from the cess collected on construction works in the Union Territory.

According to the Labour Department, Government of Puducherry, maternity benefit is paid at Rs 5,000 to the woman beneficiary who is eligible for this assistance during the period of maternity, and the spouse of a male worker who is a beneficiary of the Board is also eligible for this benefit.

That second sentence is what makes the scheme genuinely useful in a construction household. Many women on a site are not themselves enrolled, but their husbands are. The Board's rule means the family is covered either way, the registration of one spouse carries the maternity benefit for the delivery.

Rs 5,000 is not a large sum against the cost of a delivery, but it lands at a point when a construction household has both lost a wage and gained an expense. It also stacks with the maternity entitlements a woman may separately have under national schemes and under the Health Department of the Union Territory, since this is a welfare board benefit and not a substitute for them.

Who is eligible for the maternity assistance?

You can claim if:

• You are a woman construction worker registered as a beneficiary of the Puducherry Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board, and you are in the period of maternity; or
• You are the wife of a registered male construction worker who is a beneficiary of the Board.
• The registration is live: subscription paid, beneficiary status current.

You are not eligible if:

• Neither you nor your husband is registered as a beneficiary of the Board. This is the decisive condition. A woman who has worked on construction sites for years but never enrolled cannot claim, and enrolment cannot be done retrospectively to cover a delivery that has already happened.
• The registration has lapsed because subscription is in arrears.
• The worker is outside the age band of 18 to 60 that governs enrolment, or works in a trade outside the 53 categories of construction work the Board has enlisted.
• You are registered with a construction workers' welfare board in another state. Each state and union territory board pays its own beneficiaries.

What documents are required?

How to apply for the maternity assistance

1. Check that the registration is live before anything else. Visit the Puducherry Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board office in your region and confirm that the beneficiary registration: yours or your husband's; is current and that no subscription is outstanding. Clear arrears at this stage.
2. Collect the delivery records. Get the discharge summary from the hospital or health centre where the delivery took place, the birth certificate of the child, and a medical certificate covering the period of maternity.
3. Obtain the claim form from the Office of the Puducherry Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board. Application forms are supplied free of cost, and claims are made offline.
4. Fill in the form with the registration number of the worker, the name of the beneficiary, the date of delivery, and the bank account into which the benefit should be credited.
5. Attach the documents — registration card, delivery proof, medical certificate, marriage proof where the claim is by the spouse, bank passbook copy and Aadhaar card.
6. Submit the claim at the Board office in your region, Puducherry, Karaikal, Mahe or Yanam, and collect the acknowledgement.
7. Follow up on the sanction. The Board publishes beneficiary lists for its schemes, and the sanctioned amount is credited to the bank account recorded in the claim.

How to register with the Board

Registration is the step that decides everything else, and it is worth doing before a pregnancy rather than during one.

1. Check the age condition. The applicant should have completed 18 years and should not have completed 60 years of age.
2. Check the work condition. The applicant should have worked in construction during the preceding 12 months.
3. Check the trade. The Board has enlisted 53 categories of construction workers for enrolment, covering the usual site trades.
4. Apply to the Labour Department, Government of Puducherry, with proof of age, residence proof, evidence of engagement in construction work, photographs and bank details, and pay the registration fee and subscription.
5. Keep paying the subscription. The Board separately operates a refund of subscription fee benefit, but an unpaid subscription in the meantime takes the worker outside every scheme.

What else the same registration entitles you to

The Labour Department lists the welfare benefits extended by the Board to enrolled workers:

Why maternity claims are rejected, and how to avoid it

• Not registered. The commonest reason by a distance. Enrol first.
• Registration lapsed for arrears of subscription on the date of the delivery.
• No proof of delivery. A claim without a discharge summary or birth certificate cannot be sanctioned.
• Relationship not established where the wife of a male worker claims. Carry marriage proof.
• Bank details wrong or account dormant, so the credit fails at the release stage.
• Very late claim. The benefit is framed around the period of maternity, so a claim filed long afterwards is harder to establish.
• Name mismatch between the Board's record, Aadhaar and the bank account. Correct these before claiming rather than after a rejection.

Where to apply and how to raise a grievance

Claims go to the Office of the Puducherry Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board, Labour Department, Government of Puducherry, with offices covering the Puducherry, Karaikal, Mahe and Yanam regions. The Labour Department publishes the Board's constitution, the list of benefits, notices and beneficiary lists at labour.py.gov.in.

Note that the Labour Department also runs the Puducherry Unorganised Labourers' Welfare Society (PULWS), a separate body with its own maternity benefit for unorganised workers in trades outside construction. A household should claim from the body it is enrolled with, not both.

A delayed or rejected claim should be taken up first with the Secretary of the Board through the Labour Department, and thereafter through the Centralised Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS) against the Government of Puducherry.

Application forms are supplied free of cost by the Board. No fee is payable to any person or agent for filing a claim or obtaining a sanction.