Disability pension and the 40 per cent benchmark

Article 41 of the Constitution is a Directive Principle: it asks the State, within the limits of its economic capacity, to make provision for public assistance in cases of unemployment, old age, sickness and disablement. The National Social Assistance Programme, launched on 15 August 1995, is one of the ways the Union has acted on it. It pays pensions to poor households for old age, widowhood and disability, and a one-time benefit when a household loses its main earner. The Union meets the central share in full; States and Union Territories add their own top-ups.

On 14 October 2026 the Union Cabinet approved continuing the programme for five years, from 2026-27 to 2030-31, with an outlay of ₹53,428 crore, and renamed it the Pradhan Mantri Samajik Sahayata Yojana. Three of its parts continue as before. The fourth, the disability pension, has been changed.

The change is about who counts as disabled for the pension. Since 2009 the pension had required severe disability — 80 per cent or more, a figure drawn from the National Trust Act, 1999 — and a minimum age of 18. The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, passed to give effect to a United Nations convention, uses a different measure: it defines 'benchmark disability' as a specified disability of at least 40 per cent, certified by the prescribed authority. That 40 per cent measure already governs disability entitlements in higher education, government jobs, and land and housing.

The pension now uses the 2016 Act's benchmark of 40 per cent. The age limit has been removed, so a child can qualify from birth. Central assistance rises from ₹300 to ₹375 a month up to age 79, and from ₹500 to ₹625 a month from age 80. The number of beneficiaries of this pension rises from 8.33 lakh to 27.48 lakh.

Some conditions have not changed. A certificate of disability is still needed, the household must still be below the poverty line, and applications still go through the State welfare department. Revised guidelines are to be issued and implemented within three months of the decision.