Gadia Lohar Scheme

What is the Gadia Lohar Scheme?

The Gadia Lohar Scheme is the Social Justice and Empowerment Department's settlement and livelihood package for the Gadia Lohar community of Rajasthan, the nomadic blacksmiths who traditionally travelled with their bullock carts, working iron at the roadside. Because the community lived on the move, it stayed outside almost every settled-life benefit: no address, no house, no school enrolment, no bank account. The department's schemes for Gadia Lohars are all aimed at that one problem; putting a family on a piece of land it can call its own and then keeping its trade alive.

The department lists the Gadia Lohar Scheme under Economic Development in its Departmental Schemes section, alongside the Sambal Gram Scheme and the Devnarayan Scheme. In practice a Gadia Lohar family in Rajasthan can draw on three distinct supports, and the sections below cover each.

Readers will find the community's name transliterated in several ways; Gadia Luhar, Gadia Lohar, Gadiya Lohar and Gadolia. The department's own scheme lists use Gadia Lohar and Gadolia, and they all refer to the same community.

Who is eligible for the Gadia Lohar Scheme?

Eligibility is set out in the department's citizen charter for each component.

For the raw material purchase grant, you can apply if:

• You belong to the Gadia Lohar caste;
• You hold the caste certificate; and
• You are a resident of the district in which you apply.

An applicant meeting these conditions may demand the grant by submitting an application in the form prescribed by the department.

For the house construction grant, you can apply if:

• Your family is a Gadia Lohar family;
• Neither the husband nor the wife owns a house;
• The land holds a patta issued as per the rules; and
• You hold the caste certificate.

You cannot apply if:

• You are not of the Gadia Lohar caste, or cannot produce the caste certificate. This is the one condition with no substitute.
• You are applying for the raw material grant in a district you do not live in.
• Your family already owns a house — that closes the house construction grant.
• Your land has no patta issued as per the rules. The department cannot sanction a construction grant on land the family does not hold lawfully.

What does the Gadia Lohar Scheme provide?

A house plot

To settle Gadia Lohar families permanently, the state government provides for the allotment of a plot of 150 square yards in rural areas and 50 square yards in urban areas. The plot is the foundation of the whole package, without a patta, the construction grant cannot follow.

A house construction grant of Rs 70,000

The department gives a grant for house construction to Gadia Lohar families. The rate was Rs 45,000 per family and the department has raised it to Rs 70,000 per family.

The money is released in three instalments:

The department's citizen charter lists this component as the Maharana Pratap Makan Nirman Yojana. Under the charter, the eligibility is that the Gadia Lohar family must have no house of its own in the name of the husband or wife, must hold land under a patta issued as per the rules, and must have the caste certificate. Such a family may demand the grant by applying in the form prescribed by the department.

A grant to buy raw material

The department also runs a grant assistance scheme for the purchase of raw material by Gadia Lohars: listed in the citizen charter as Gadia Loharon ko Kaccha Maal Kray karne hetu Anudan Sahayata Yojana. This is the livelihood side of the package: a blacksmith without iron has no trade. An applicant of the Gadia Lohar caste holding a caste certificate and residing in the concerned district may demand the grant by applying in the prescribed form.

The department's citizen charter does not publish a fixed rupee figure for this grant, and no rate has been notified on the department's public scheme pages. Ask the district office for the current sanctioned rate rather than relying on a figure quoted elsewhere.

How to apply for the Gadia Lohar Scheme

1. Obtain your Gadia Lohar caste certificate from the tehsildar if you do not already hold one. Nothing under this scheme moves without it.
2. Collect the prescribed application form from the district office of the Social Justice and Empowerment Department, or download it from sje.rajasthan.gov.in. There is a separate form for house construction and for the raw material grant.
3. For the house construction grant, attach the land patta, the caste certificate, a declaration that neither husband nor wife owns a house, your bank passbook copy, Aadhaar and Jan Aadhaar. Submit the form to the Block Social Security Officer, who is the nodal officer for this component under the citizen charter.
4. For the raw material grant, attach the caste certificate, proof of residence in the district, your bank passbook copy, Aadhaar and Jan Aadhaar. Submit the form to the district officers of the department, who are the nodal officers for this component.
5. Collect an acknowledgement showing the date the application was received. The one-month disposal clock runs from the receipt of a complete application.
6. Follow up at the district office for the sanction and for the release of the second and third instalments after each stage of construction.

How long does a sanction take?

The department's citizen charter fixes the timelines:

Where the file is not settled within the period, the controlling authority for both components is the Director or Commissioner, Social Justice and Empowerment Department.

The words "subject to budget availability" matter. Unlike a pension, these grants are capital sanctions against a district allocation. A complete and eligible application may still wait for the next budget release, and that is a normal outcome rather than a rejection.

What else is available to a Gadia Lohar family?

Devnarayan Yojana scholarships. Gadia-Lohar and Gadolia are named among the Ati Pichhda Varg communities covered by the Devnarayan Yojana, along with Banjara, Baldiya, Labana, Gujar, Gurjar, Raika, Rebari, Debasi, Gadaria, Gadri and Gayari. Under that umbrella a Gadia Lohar student can claim the Devnarayan pre-matric scholarship for classes 6 to 10, subject to a parental income limit of Rs 2,00,000; the Devnarayan post-matric scholarship for recognised post-secondary courses, subject to an income limit of Rs 2,50,000; admission to the Devnarayan Gurukul Yojana, in which students who pass class 5 in a recognised non-government school are admitted through an entrance examination to 51 selected private schools, with a maximum of two children per parent; and the Devnarayan girl students' scooty distribution and incentive scheme, whose annual target was raised from 1,500 scooties to 2,463 in 2022-23 and to 3,695 from 2023-24.

The state welfare board. The Rajasthan State Denotified, Nomadic and Semi-Nomadic Welfare Board works under the Social Justice and Empowerment Department and is the standing body for communities in this position.

Dr Ambedkar DNTs post-matric scholarship. The department runs a post-matric scholarship specifically for denotified, nomadic and semi-nomadic students who fall outside the Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe, Other Backward Class and Special Backward Class lists, with a parental income limit of Rs 2.5 lakh.

Common reasons an application stalls

• No caste certificate, or a certificate in a spelling that does not match the land or bank records.
• No land patta, so the construction grant cannot be sanctioned even though the family clearly needs a house.
• A house already owned by the husband or wife, which bars the construction grant.
• Applying in the wrong district for the raw material grant.
• Budget exhausted in the district for that financial year, the file waits rather than fails.
• Second and third instalments not claimed because the construction stage was not reported to the Block Social Security Officer.

Help and contacts

• Departmental helpdesk: 0141-2226638, weekdays 9:30 AM to 6:00 PM
• Email: support.sje@rajasthan.gov.in
• House construction component: Block Social Security Officer of your block
• Raw material grant: District officer, Social Justice and Empowerment Department
• Appellate authority: Director or Commissioner, Social Justice and Empowerment Department, Ambedkar Bhawan, G-3/1, Rajmahal Residency Area, Jaipur

Detailed information and the application forms are published on sje.rajasthan.gov.in under Departmental Schemes. There is no fee for applying, and no agent can charge to get a Gadia Lohar sanction approved.