Assistance to Voluntary Organizations Working for Welfare of OBCs(AVOWWOBC)

Overview

About AVOWWOBC

Under Assistance to Voluntary Organizations Working for Welfare of OBCs, the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment pays nothing to a student. It pays a registered voluntary organisation to run a skill training centre, and the OBC trainee who fills a seat in that centre is the person the money is meant to reach. The scheme guidelines trace that design back to a principle held from 1988 onwards, that good voluntary organisations should not only be assisted but consciously built up in their capacity (scheme guidelines, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment).

The grant buys a trade, not a semester. The guidelines set the aim as upgrading skills so that OBCs can start income generating activities on their own or find wage employment, and the indicative list of fundable activities runs from carpentry, welding and diesel pump set repairing to computer education, typing and shorthand, and tie and dye training (scheme guidelines). The list is introductory rather than closed: any project pertaining to skill upgradation can be taken up, and the guidelines say such projects are accorded priority.

The name has moved on since the guidelines were issued. The Department of Social Justice and Empowerment now lists this line among its OBC programmes as Assistance for Skill Development of OBCs/DNTs/EBCs (NGO Scheme), a title that carries denotified tribes and economically backward classes alongside OBCs (schemes and programmes for OBCs, DoSJE). An organisation searching for the older title will find the newer one in the Department's own lists, and the two describe the same grant-in-aid line.

Projects can also be located in villages covered by the Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana, either by a willing eligible NGO or by the Gram Panchayat itself, provided the scheme's rates and modalities are followed.

Who runs it

Provider

At a glance

Key details

Calendar

Important dates

No open or close date is published for this scheme, on the source record or in the guidelines, and the Ministry announces its grant windows by notice on the grants portal rather than on a fixed annual calendar. The dates that are fixed are the ones that follow a sanction.

Who can apply

Eligibility criteria

Two separate tests run at once, and an organisation that clears its own can still be stopped by the second. The organisation has to be a body with a legal status of its own: a society under the Societies Registration Act, 1860, or a state or union territory equivalent, a registered public trust, a charitable company licensed under the Companies Act, or another public body (scheme guidelines, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment). It must be governed by its own members on democratic principles without external control, and it must not be run for profit to any individual or body of individuals.

Two three-year clocks run alongside those structural tests. Registration must be three years old at the time of applying, and the bank account has to have been maintained and operated in the organisation's own name for the last three years. The Secretary of the Ministry can waive the registration condition in exceptional cases, for reasons recorded in writing.

Two further conditions are described as selection criteria rather than entry bars: two years of experience in the relevant field, and a project located in the backward districts identified by the Planning Commission. An organisation with branches in more than one state can have each branch apply separately or apply under the parent body, and each branch is eligible for the administrative overhead cost of supervising and monitoring its own performance.

On the beneficiary side, the trainee must appear on the Central List of Backward Classes or the notified OBC list of the concerned state or union territory, and family income from all sources, including the trainee's own, must not exceed Rs 1 lakh a year (scheme guidelines).

Who cannot apply

Exclusions

There is no exclusion list to quote here: myScheme leaves that field blank, and the guidelines never gather the bars under a heading of their own. Two of them stop a sanction or unwind one. No grant is sanctioned where there is a reasonable suspicion or suggestion of corrupt practices until the organisation is cleared of the allegations. An organisation that withheld or suppressed information about grants from other official sources, or supplied factually incorrect information, can have its grant cancelled or reduced and can be asked to refund what it already received, with interest.

Money from elsewhere is netted off rather than stacked. If the organisation has received or expects to receive a grant from another official source for the same purpose, the central assistance is normally assessed after taking that into account. Where central grant-in-aid meets more than half of an organisation's annual recurring expenditure, the Government reserves the right to nominate its own representatives on that body (scheme guidelines).

Continuation

Renewal conditions

Renewal turns on last year's placement record rather than on last year's spending. The organisation has to maintain the wage or self-employment status of its trainees on its own website, and it becomes eligible for the following year only when at least 70% of the trainees have attained employment. The guidelines also fix that 50% of the trainees should be women, that courses be chosen so the skills taught match the job demand of that specific area, and that a quarterly survey report on training quality and employability go to the Ministry (scheme guidelines).

The paperwork that unlocks the next instalment is fixed. For a continuing project, the first instalment of up to 75% of estimated expenditure is released once the fresh application arrives with the utilisation certificate for the last grant in the GFR-19A format, the previous year's accounts showing expenditure against the grant sanctioned, budget estimates for the year in question, and the performance of the project with statistical data (scheme guidelines).

What you get

Award & benefits

The central share is a percentage of an approved project, not a fixed sum, and there is no published per-project ceiling. Financial norms are set per category of project and revised from time to time, and where a norm does not exist for a project the Ministry decides case by case. What the trainee receives was fixed when the scheme was last revised in 2017-18, and that revision is where the only per-person figures live.

The balance of approved expenditure comes from the organisation's own resources. Where the Ministry itself runs an element of the programme, such as engaging consultants for project formulation or training NGO functionaries, that cost is borne fully from the scheme's own budget.

• Financial support for skill development projects aimed at improving socio-economic conditions of OBCs.
• Simplified and transparent application and approval process.
• Regular monitoring and evaluation to ensure effective utilization of funds.
• Support for NGOs to enhance their capacity and expand their reach.
• Encouragement of self-employment and gainful employment for OBCs.
• Priority given to projects in backward districts and villages under SAGY.
• Extent of Assistance: Government may cover up to 90% of approved project expenditure.
• PSUs or other organizations limited to 30% of project cost for skill development programs.
• First installment up to 75% on submission of necessary documents.
• Second installment on receipt of audited accounts and utilization certificates.

What to prepare

Documents required

Two documents come before the annual paperwork and neither is on the scheme's own list. Registration on the grants portal requires an NGO Unique ID obtained first from the NITI Aayog NGO Darpan portal, and the PAN of the organisation (e-Anudaan registration instructions). Registration details already held by NGO Darpan are auto-filled on the grants portal in non-editing mode, so a correction to them has to be made at NGO Darpan first, after which the Update Profile option inside the e-Anudaan login pulls it through.

Beyond the annual set, the guidelines add two records that are checked rather than submitted. A register of assets goes in the GFR proforma, covering assets of permanent value and machinery and equipment with a life of not less than 5 years costing Rs 10,000 and above each, and a separate audited record covers assets acquired wholly or substantially out of government grants where the value exceeds Rs 5000 (scheme guidelines). The list of beneficiaries has to be furnished online with Voter ID numbers, and the name and address details have to match the Voter ID as issued.

Step by step

How to apply

The application is online end to end, and it does not start at the Ministry. An organisation recommended by the concerned State Government or the Government of India files on the portal, and the file is then forwarded by district level officials, the state directorate and the state secretariat before the Ministry sees it. Registration on the grants portal is a one-time step, and an organisation that has ended up with several logins is shown all of them and has to keep one active while the rest are deactivated (e-Anudaan, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment).

Confirm the window before drafting anything. The portal's own scheme list carries the drug demand reduction, senior citizens, SHRESHTA and SMILE schemes, and this OBC line is not among them (e-Anudaan schemes), so an organisation preparing a proposal should ask the Department's Backward Classes side, and its own state social welfare department, where the current OBC skill development proposal goes.

Tracking the Proposal and the Payment

There is no public status lookup on the portal; the tracking sits inside the NGO login. The Ministry's annual report lists application status tracking and a complete history of the movement of a proposal among the portal's features, alongside SMS and e-mail alerts to every stakeholder and a deficiency notification that lets an organisation upload the documents an officer found missing (Annual Report 2023-24, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment). Each change of status is a back office role finishing with the file: someone verifies the application, fills its checklist, files the inspection report, scrutinises it, screens it and recommends it, after which financial approval and the grant-in-aid sanction are given (e-Anudaan).

Payment is a stage past the sanction, not the same event. The same report, describing how grant-in-aid reaches NGOs on this portal, records that e-Anudaan is linked with the PFMS portal and that the final payment is made through the PFMS window. The guidelines then require the sanctioned amount to land in an account operated jointly by the organisation's President and Secretary.

How winners are picked

Selection process

The state decides whether a project is needed before the centre decides whether it is affordable. Each state and union territory constitutes a multidisciplinary State Committee chaired by the Principal Secretary or Secretary of the state social welfare department, which examines proposals online against the Ministry's procedure, uses inspection and performance reports from field functionaries, and satisfies itself about the necessity and viability of funding the project through inspection visits.

Scale follows that recommendation rather than a quota. The guidelines set no upper limit on beneficiaries in any category of project; the number depends on demand as recommended by the State Committee, subject to funds, and the beneficiary counts printed in the financial norms exist only for calculation (scheme guidelines).

Fine print

Terms & conditions

Four conditions bind the organisation for as long as the project runs, and they are easy to miss because they sit outside the money. No capitation or similar fee, and no donation in any form, may be charged from any beneficiary. Where personnel are selected on contract for the aided project, the organisation has to reserve posts for OBCs on the lines of the reservation provided in central government services. Instructors and master craftsmen engaged to teach a trade are to be technically trained in that trade, preferably on the pattern government institutions follow.

The fourth outlives the project. Capital equipment and property bought out of the grant cannot be disposed of without prior government approval, and if the organisation discontinues the scheme or is wound up, ownership of that equipment and property vests in the Government of India. Separately, the agency running a vocational training centre is expected to arrange a loan or subsidy for each successful trainee, from a commercial bank, a regional rural bank, a state channelising agency of the National Backward Classes Finance and Development Corporation, or another agency, so that the trainee can actually start work (scheme guidelines).

Get help

Contact

No officer is named for this scheme anywhere the Ministry publishes. e-Anudaan runs one technical support desk for the whole portal, on 011-24364461 between 9:30 AM and 5:30 PM and at support.ngo-msje@nic.in, and the scheme-wise directory of Ministry officers beside it covers SHRESHTA, the senior citizens plan, the drug demand reduction plan and SMILE, with no row for this OBC line (e-Anudaan contact page). That leaves the state social welfare department whose Principal Secretary chairs the State Committee as the address for the proposal itself, since the guidelines route every file through it before the Ministry sees it.

Source

Official links

Frequently asked questions

From the official scheme FAQ (myScheme)

Read this

Disclaimer

Disclaimer

Scheme details are compiled from myScheme, the Government of India’s official scheme-discovery platform, and are reproduced without alteration. Amounts, deadlines and eligibility change between cycles, so always confirm on the official links above before applying. Expertie does not process applications or charge fees.

Explore more

Related scholarships

References

Sources