Dulari Scheme(DS-A&N)

Overview

About DS-A&N

The Dulari Scheme pays a girl in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands at birth, again on passing Classes VIII, X and XII, and again when she marries. Almost none of that money reaches the family on the day it is sanctioned. Each amount is kept in fixed deposit in the name of the child (Directorate of Health Services, Dulari Scheme registration form and claim conditions), and it stays shut until she turns 18 unless the Andaman and Nicobar Administration says otherwise (Directorate of Health Services, Dulari Scheme). Everything else about the scheme, who registers, what has to be proved and when, follows from that one design choice.

Dulari is a demographic instrument that happens to pay for schooling. The Health Department of the Union Territory launched it on 26 January 2013, and the Administration approved it vide No. 34-66/2012-MPH (PF) dated 4 February 2013 (Directorate of Health Services, Dulari Scheme). Its stated aim is to close the gap in the sex ratio to a replacement level of Net Reproduction Rate 1 within ten years of implementation, and, alongside that, to encourage hospital delivery, to give the newborn girl social security for her education and marriage, and to push marriage later (Directorate of Information and Publicity, Andaman and Nicobar Administration). Read the benefit list against those objectives and it stops looking like a scholarship: the school-passing money is one lever among several, not the point of the scheme.

It is also small, local and steady rather than a mass programme. Registrations stood at 24,367 up to December 2020, and the same report breaks that figure down by the deposits actually issued: 6,913 for new-born benefits, 10,337 on a Class VIII pass, 4,939 on Class X and 2,178 on Class XII (Daily Telegrams, 11 January 2021). The four add to the headline figure exactly, so what is being counted is deposits and not girls: one who has cleared both Class VIII and Class X sits in it twice. More had been issued on the schooling side than at birth, which is what folding the pre-2013 cohort in on education-only terms would produce. Registrations reached 29,303 up to April 2022 (Directorate of Information and Publicity, Andaman and Nicobar Administration). The Directorate of Health Services carries Dulari as a revenue line inside its own budget rather than as a separate scheme head, provided at Rs 350 lakh in 2023-24 and again in 2024-25, and Rs 405 lakh in 2025-26 (Directorate of Health Services, Action Plan for 2023-24 to 2025-26). A family dealing with this scheme is dealing with a health directorate, not an education department and not a bank product.

The rules themselves now take some finding. The Directorate's Dulari page is gone from the live health-services site, which reaches the scheme only through a Dulari Scheme Registration tile pointing at the Administration's eServices portal (Directorate of Health Services). The order number, the benefit table and the cessation grounds set out below are therefore read from the archived copy of that page (Directorate of Health Services, Dulari Scheme) and from the registration form the Directorate published under its RTI disclosures (Directorate of Health Services, Dulari Scheme registration form and claim conditions).

Who runs it

Provider

At a glance

Key details

Calendar

Important dates

Dulari has a start date and no calendar. It was launched on 26 January 2013 and approved by the Administration on 4 February 2013 (Directorate of Health Services, Dulari Scheme), and no closing date, application window or annual cycle has been published since. The timing that matters is the event: a birth registration, a board or annual result, a marriage. The portal's own service record also declines to state how many days a decision takes (ServicePlus, Dulari Registration service description), so a family should file as soon as the certificate for the milestone exists rather than waiting for a deadline that is never announced.

Who can apply

Eligibility criteria

Residence is tested on the parents, not on the child. A girl qualifies where either parent is a permanent resident of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands (Directorate of Information and Publicity, Andaman and Nicobar Administration). Nothing in the published rules turns on household income, caste or the mother's education; a parent's residence and the girl's date of birth are the whole test.

Date of birth is the test that actually sorts applicants, and the Directorate's own page carries two dates rather than one. Girls born on or after 26.01.2013 are eligible for the birth incentive, while the same page records that the incentive is being given to those born on or after 01.10.2013 and to others as per the criteria (Directorate of Health Services, Dulari Scheme). A family whose daughter was born between those two dates should settle the point at the Dulari Cell before assembling papers, because the answer decides whether a birth claim exists at all.

The older cohort was folded in on narrower terms. Girls who were between 0 and 13 years old when the scheme began, and who were not already covered under the earlier Planned Family Scheme, get the education incentives only, and only from a Class VIII pass onwards (Directorate of Health Services, Dulari Scheme). For that group the birth incentive is gone and cannot be reopened.

Who cannot apply

Exclusions

The scheme does not disqualify a family once and for all; it stops the tap on the instalments still ahead. Benefits cease where the parent or the beneficiary gives a false or concealed statement, where the girl marries before turning 21, and where she drops out of school, with the drop-out rule biting only on the further education-linked payments (Directorate of Health Services, Dulari Scheme). Because each milestone is claimed separately, a girl who misses Class VIII but sits and passes Class X has not forfeited the later claim.

Death before the age of disbursal is handled as a closure rather than a cancellation: the Directorate of Health Services may pass an order to prematurely close the deposit, and the amount as applicable may be given to the parents (Directorate of Health Services, Dulari Scheme).

Continuation

Renewal conditions

Nothing about Dulari runs on an academic year, so nothing renews on one. Registration happens once and every later milestone is a fresh claim filed against it, which is why the Administration's portal lists Dulari Scheme Registration and Dulari Scheme Application as two separate services under Health Services (Andaman and Nicobar eServices). The one continuing obligation is documentary: where any document has changed since the last claim, the new one must be submitted along with the application form (Directorate of Health Services, Dulari Scheme registration form and claim conditions).

What you get

Award & benefits

The birth incentive splits by place of delivery, and the gap between the two figures is the scheme doing its job: a hospital delivery is worth more than a home delivery because encouraging institutional delivery is one of the stated objectives.

What the amount column does not show is that the money is not spendable when it lands. Each sanction is kept in fixed deposit in the name of the child, and the claim form even prints the counter it ran through, a Syndicate Bank branch sitting inside the Directorate at Port Blair (Directorate of Health Services, Dulari Scheme registration form and claim conditions); it cannot be drawn before she attains 18 years of age or under any other rule passed by the Administration (Directorate of Health Services, Dulari Scheme). No interest rate is published for that deposit, and the form naming the bank is an archived one rather than a current circular, so a parent planning around a school fee should confirm the branch at the Dulari Cell and treat the sanction as a locked asset rather than as cash arriving that year.

• As per the scheme, the following benefits are given to the girl child whose parents are domicile of Andaman & Nicobar Islands:
• Sl. No.DescriptionsAmount of Assistance1Benefits at Birth- Institution deliver₹8,000/-2Benefits at Birth- Home delivery₹5,000/-3Benefits on passing VIII Standard₹5,000/-4Benefits on passing X Standard₹10,000/-5Benefits on passing XII Standard₹10,000/-6Benefits on getting married at the age of 21 years₹5,000/-7Benefits on getting married after age of 25 years₹10,000/-<br>
• Note- The incentive amount will be fixed in a bank account and must not be withdrawn before the girl attains 18 years of age, unless permitted by the A&N Administration.

What to prepare

Documents required

The shape of the paperwork matters more than the list of items. Registration and every subsequent claim are filed with attested true copies in duplicate, together with coloured passport photographs of the parents, and the originals are verified by the registering authority both when the girl's name is entered and at every step of giving incentives (Directorate of Health Services, Dulari Scheme registration form and claim conditions).

Two items are more specific than a general document list suggests. The birth certificate has to come from the Registrar of Births and Deaths rather than from the hospital, and residence may be proved by the Islands identity card, a domicile certificate or a permanent resident certificate. For a marriage claim, the marriage registration certificate has an accepted substitute, a certificate from an Executive Magistrate (Directorate of Health Services, Dulari Scheme registration form and claim conditions). A school-stage claim rests on the mark sheet plus a bonafide or school leaving certificate, which together answer the drop-out condition rather than merely proving the pass. The form also splits its demands across two faces: the front page carries a short tick-list of compulsory documents, while the fuller set every claim has to satisfy is printed on the back (Directorate of Health Services, Dulari Scheme registration form and claim conditions), so a family working only from the front of the form will arrive short.

Step by step

How to apply

Register the child first, then claim per milestone. Both steps run through the Andaman and Nicobar eServices portal, where Dulari Scheme Registration and Dulari Scheme Application sit under Health Services and open the ServicePlus application forms (Andaman and Nicobar eServices). The service definition names the Directorate of Health Services as the line department, records the service as citizen-facing, requires the applicant to create a portal account before applying, accepts submission either by hand or online, and publishes no delivery timeline for the output (ServicePlus, Dulari Registration service description). Families who prefer paper still work through the health system: registration forms are available at the nearest health centre, and the Dulari Cell functions at Room No. 57 of the OPD Complex at G.B. Pant Hospital (Directorate of Information and Publicity, Andaman and Nicobar Administration).

Tracking runs on the portal's generic ServicePlus machinery, and the portal's own help sets out two routes to it: click Check Your Application Status on the home page, or log in with the account used to file and open Track Application Status under View Status of Application. Once the status against the application reference number reads Delivered, the Application Form Details window carries an Output Certificate link that can be printed, and anyone holding that certificate can confirm it through Verify your Certificate, which asks for the application reference number and the token number printed on it (Andaman and Nicobar eServices).

How winners are picked

Selection process

A Dulari claim is signed off, not scored. The published rules set no merit condition beyond the pass itself, so a girl who scraped through Class X and a girl who topped her school reach the same amount, and a claim either clears the eligibility and document tests or it does not. What replaces a selection committee is a verification chain on the form itself: the officer in charge of the health institution certifies the claim as verified and found correct, the Dulari Cell signs and seals it, and the bank block at the foot collects the last signature the claim needs before the deposit is opened (Directorate of Health Services, Dulari Scheme registration form and claim conditions).

Fine print

Terms & conditions

The binding conditions are the deposit lock and the verification duty, and both sit outside the eligibility test. The sanctioned amount is held in fixed deposit in the girl's name and is not withdrawable before she turns 18 except under a rule passed by the Administration, and where the child dies before the age of disbursal the Directorate may order premature closure in favour of the parents (Directorate of Health Services, Dulari Scheme). Alongside that, originals are re-verified at every incentive stage and a changed document must travel with the next application form (Directorate of Health Services, Dulari Scheme registration form and claim conditions).

Get help

Contact

Registration questions belong at the Dulari Cell in Room No. 57 of the OPD Complex at G.B. Pant Hospital, or at the nearest health institution, which is where forms are issued (Directorate of Information and Publicity, Andaman and Nicobar Administration). The parent office is the Directorate of Health Services, reachable at 03192-233331 and dirdhs.and@nic.in (Directorate of Health Services, Dulari Scheme), and it now lists its address as Atlanta Point, Sri Vijaya Puram 744101 (Directorate of Health Services, Contact Us). The PIN code, the phone number and the email are the ones the older Dulari page carried under a Port Blair address, so a circular naming an unfamiliar city is still the same directorate.

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.

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References

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