Financial Assistance for Purchase or Construction of House (UKBOCWWB)

What is the UKBOCWWB house purchase or construction assistance?

Financial Assistance for Purchase or Construction of House is a welfare scheme of the Uttarakhand Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board (UKBOCWWB), which sits under the Labour Department, Government of Uttarakhand. The scheme advances a loan of up to Rs 50,000 at 5% interest per annum to registered construction workers who want to buy or build a house of their own. The scheme is also referred to as the Housing Assistance Scheme (UKBOCWWB) and, on some government service directories, as the home loan subsidy grant, Uttarakhand.

UKBOCWWB is a statutory board constituted under the Building and Other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1996 and the associated Cess Act. It is funded by a cess collected on construction projects in the state, not from general taxation, which is why every benefit it pays is restricted to workers registered with the board. The board's office is at the GMVN Building, Rajpur Road, Dehradun.

The problem the scheme addresses is specific. Construction workers build houses for a living and are among the least likely to own a permanent one, because their income is daily-wage, seasonal and unrecorded, which makes them unattractive to a commercial lender. A Rs 50,000 advance at 5% is small against the cost of a house, but it is designed to close a gap, a roof, a floor, a plot payment, the margin a bank asks for, rather than to fund a full build.

Key facts

• Loan amount: up to Rs 50,000.
• Interest: 5% per annum, which is well below commercial housing rates.
• Nature: repayable loan, not a grant.
• Membership condition: at least 5 years of membership of the board's fund.
• Purpose: purchase or construction of a house.

Who is eligible for the UKBOCWWB housing assistance?

You can apply if:

• You are a permanent resident of Uttarakhand.
• You are engaged in building or other construction work, masonry, carpentry, bar bending, plumbing, electrical work, painting, road or bridge work, and the other trades notified under the 1996 Act.
• You are registered with UKBOCWWB and hold a valid, unlapsed labour card.
• You have been a member of the fund for at least 5 years, with subscription kept current.
• You need the money for buying or constructing a house, and can show a plot document or a purchase agreement.

You cannot apply if:

• You are not registered with UKBOCWWB. Registration is the gate; register first, then wait out the qualifying period.
• Your labour card has lapsed because the annual subscription was not paid. Lapsed membership breaks the continuity the board counts.
• You have less than 5 years of fund membership.
• You are a contractor, employer or supervisor rather than a worker. The cess fund exists for workers.
• You are not a resident of Uttarakhand, or your construction work is registered with another state's board.
• You already own a pucca house. The self-declaration in the application covers exactly this point, and a false declaration is a ground for recovery.

What documents are required?

Carry originals for verification. The board's district office typically returns originals after checking and retains self-attested copies.

How to apply for the UKBOCWWB housing assistance

1. Confirm your registration is live. Check your labour card's validity and that your subscription is paid up to date. If it has lapsed, get it renewed at the district labour office before applying, because a lapsed card stops the application at the first check.
2. Collect the documents listed above, particularly the plot papers or purchase agreement, which are the ones applicants most often turn up without.
3. Apply online at ukbocw.uk.gov.in or through the Uttarakhand e-services portal. Log in with your registration number, open the housing assistance scheme, fill the form and upload scanned documents.
4. Or apply offline by collecting the application form from the district labour office or the board's office in Dehradun, filling it, attaching self-attested copies and submitting it across the counter.
5. Collect an acknowledgement carrying your application number. Do not leave the counter without one — it is the only handle you have for follow-up.
6. Cooperate with verification. The labour inspector or board official verifies your registration record, subscription history, residence and the plot documents.
7. Receive the sanction and disbursal. On approval, the amount is transferred to your Aadhaar-seeded bank account. Repayment terms with 5% annual interest are set out in the sanction letter.

Application is free. No agent can secure a sanction, and no fee should be paid to any person for "getting the file cleared".

How much does the scheme pay and on what terms?

The scheme advances up to Rs 50,000, and the interest rate published for it is 5% per annum. The sanctioned amount can be lower than Rs 50,000 depending on the board's assessment and the applicant's record. The money is a loan and is recovered as per the terms in the sanction letter.

Because this is a repayable advance, a worker should be clear about two things before applying: the repayment obligation continues even in a lean construction season, and default can affect access to other board benefits. Workers looking for an outright grant should look instead at the board's other schemes, maternity benefit, education assistance for children, marriage assistance, tool kit assistance and the disability pension, which are paid as benefits rather than loans.

How to check your application status

1. Log in to ukbocw.uk.gov.in with your registration number and open the application status or scheme status section.
2. Use the Uttarakhand e-services portal if you applied through it, and track with the application reference number.
3. Visit or call the district labour office with your application number for offline applications, which do not always mirror to the online tracker.

Keep the acknowledgement slip and a photocopy of the full submitted file. Where a sanction is issued but no credit appears, the usual cause is a bank account that is not Aadhaar-seeded or a name mismatch between the labour card and the bank record.

Why applications get rejected

• Lapsed registration. The most common single reason. An unrenewed labour card breaks the membership continuity the scheme depends on.
• Less than 5 years of membership, sometimes because a gap year in subscription resets the count.
• No plot or purchase document, so the end use cannot be established.
• Bank account not Aadhaar-seeded, or the account is in a spouse's name.
• Name or date-of-birth mismatch between the labour card, Aadhaar and bank records.
• Already owning a pucca house, or having taken a housing benefit that was not disclosed.
• Application submitted at the wrong office rather than the district labour office for the worker's registered district.

Most of these are correctable. Renew the card, get the bank account seeded, obtain a certified copy of the plot document, and re-apply.

Where to raise a grievance

• District Labour Office for your district; first point of contact for registration, renewal and application follow-up.
• Uttarakhand Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board, 3rd Floor, GMVN Building, Rajpur Road, Dehradun 248001.
• Labour Department, Uttarakhand at labour.uk.gov.in, which supervises the board.

This guide does not print a helpline number for the board, because the number listed on some directory pages is a placeholder rather than a working line. Use the district labour office or the board's Dehradun address until an official helpline is published on ukbocw.uk.gov.in.