Rupashree Prakalpa

What is Rupashree Prakalpa?

Rupashree Prakalpa is a marriage assistance scheme of the Department of Women and Child Development and Social Welfare, Government of West Bengal. The scheme pays a one-time financial grant of Rs 25,000 to an adult woman from an economically weaker family at the time of her marriage. The name is often transliterated as Rupashree Prokolpo in Bengali usage, and the same scheme is meant in both spellings.

Rupashree Prakalpa exists to answer a specific problem. In many low-income households a daughter's wedding is met by borrowing at high interest or by selling an asset, and that pressure is one of the reasons families push girls into marrying early. Rupashree Prakalpa attaches its grant to two hard age conditions. The woman must be 18 or above and the man 21 or above, so the money is only available where the marriage is legal in the first place.

Three features distinguish Rupashree Prakalpa from a general welfare payment:

• The grant is one time, once in a lifetime, and it is not a loan.
• The money is credited to the applicant's own single-name bank account, not to her father's account and not to the groom's family.
• The application is expected before the marriage, not as a reimbursement afterwards.

Who is eligible for Rupashree Prakalpa?

You can be sanctioned the grant if:

• You are a woman aged 18 years or above on the date of application.
• You are unmarried, and this is your first marriage.
• Your family income does not exceed Rs 1,50,000 a year from all sources, certified by the competent authority.
• You are a resident of West Bengal, or your parents are permanent residents of the state.
• Your prospective husband is 21 years or above.
• You hold a bank account in your sole name that can receive NEFT payments.

You are not eligible if:

• You are under 18, or the intended groom is under 21. This condition is not relaxed, because a marriage below those ages is not legal.
• You have been married before. A second marriage, or a remarriage after divorce or widowhood, is outside the scheme as framed.
• Your certified family income is above Rs 1.5 lakh a year.
• Neither you nor your parents are residents of West Bengal.
• Your only bank account is a joint account or one held in a parent's or guardian's name. The grant must reach the bride herself, so an account in someone else's name cannot be used and the application will be held until you open one.
• You have already received the Rupashree grant once.

What documents are required for Rupashree Prakalpa?

Before you submit, check that your name and date of birth read identically on the age proof, the bank passbook and the income certificate. A mismatch between these three is the most avoidable cause of delay.

How to apply for Rupashree Prakalpa

Rupashree Prakalpa is applied for on a printed form submitted to a government office. There is no self-service online submission for a fresh application; the portal wbrupashree.gov.in is used by officers to process the file and by applicants and help desks to track it.

1. Collect the application form free of cost from the Block office, the Sub-Divisional office, the Municipal Corporation office or the Kolkata Municipal Corporation office for your area. Help desks at Duare Sarkar camps also distribute the form along with a document checklist.
2. Open a bank account in your own single name if you do not already have one, and make sure it can receive NEFT transfers. Do this first, because the account number is part of the form.
3. Fill in the form with your details, the groom's details and the date of the intended marriage, and sign the declaration that you have not been married before.
4. Attach the documents, age proof, income certificate, residence proof, bank passbook copy, marriage invitation or notice, the groom's age proof and the photographs.
5. Submit the completed application at the Block, Sub-Divisional or Municipal Corporation office covering your residence, or at a Duare Sarkar help desk, and keep the acknowledgement.
6. Allow time for the field enquiry. Officials verify your age, residence, marital status and family income before the file moves to sanction, which is why filing well ahead of the wedding date matters.
7. Collect the outcome. The sanctioning officer, the BDO, SDO or Municipal Commissioner — sanctions applications that pass verification, and the Rs 25,000 is then credited to your account.

Submit at least about a month before the wedding wherever you can. The scheme is designed around a pre-marriage application, and a file handed in a few days before the date leaves no room for the enquiry and the payment run.

How do you check the status of a Rupashree application?

Quote the acknowledgement number from your submitted form and follow it up at the office where you filed it. The Block, Sub-Divisional or Municipal Corporation office. The department's portal wbrupashree.gov.in carries the applicant search and the grievance route used by the help desks, and camp help desks at Duare Sarkar are specifically tasked with informing applicants about the scheme, accepting applications and tracking grievances through the portal.

If the wedding date is close and the file has not moved, go back to the sanctioning office in person with your acknowledgement rather than waiting. The practical bottleneck in most delayed cases is a document the verifying officer was not satisfied with, and that is resolved fastest across a counter.

Why do Rupashree Prakalpa applications get rejected?

• Family income above Rs 1.5 lakh on the certificate, the ceiling is fixed and is not relaxed for a large family.
• Age below the limits for the applicant or the groom.
• A bank account that is not the applicant's own sole account, or one that cannot receive NEFT.
• A second marriage, or the applicant not being previously unmarried.
• Documents that contradict one another on name spelling or date of birth.
• Filing after the marriage has already been solemnised.
• A duplicate claim by someone who has already received the grant once.

Most of these are correctable. An income certificate can be re-obtained, a sole-name account can be opened in a day at a nearby bank branch, and a spelling mismatch can be fixed on the underlying document, after which the application can be put in again, provided the wedding has not already taken place.

Where do you get help with Rupashree Prakalpa?

• Block Development Officer's office for rural applicants.
• Sub-Divisional Officer's office where the sub-division is the sanctioning authority.
• Municipal Corporation or Kolkata Municipal Corporation office for urban applicants.
• Duare Sarkar camp help desks, which hand out forms, explain the document checklist and log grievances.
• wbrupashree.gov.in, the Department of Women and Child Development and Social Welfare's Rupashree portal.

Rupashree Prakalpa is free. The form costs nothing, no fee is payable at any stage, and nobody, official, camp volunteer or agent; is authorised to take money for getting a Rupashree application sanctioned.