Financial Assistance to Male and Transgender Acid Attack Victims

What is Haryana's financial assistance for male and transgender acid attack victims?

Financial Assistance to Male and Transgender Acid Attack Victims is a scheme of the Social Justice and Empowerment Department, Government of Haryana, notified in the Haryana Government Gazette (Extraordinary) on 8 March 2019 under notification No. 411-SW(4)-2019. The scheme provides monthly financial assistance over the life-span of the victim to male and transgender persons disabled by an acid attack.

The notification exists because Haryana's earlier acid attack scheme covered only women and girls. The gazette records that the need arose for a comprehensive scheme for the relief and rehabilitation of male and transgender acid attack victims, with reference to COCP No. 2830 of 2016 before the High Court, where it was submitted that the existing notification was confined to female victims whereas a victim can be male as well.

According to the notification, assistance is granted for disability arising on account of an acid attack. The notification makes clear that an acid attack is defined as an attack by another person and does not include self-inflicted acid injuries made deliberately or inadvertently.

The scheme is administered by the Directorate of Social Justice and Empowerment and applications go to the District Social Welfare Officer.

How much financial assistance is paid?

Financial Assistance to Male and Transgender Acid Attack Victims is calculated as a multiple of the Haryana Divyang pension, so the amount rises automatically whenever the state revises its disability pension.

The Haryana Divyang pension is Rs 3,200 per month with effect from 1 November 2025, which produces the rupee figures in the third column. When the Divyang pension was Rs 3,000, the same slabs paid Rs 7,500, Rs 10,500 and Rs 13,500. No separate notification is needed each time the base rate changes. The multiplier structure carries the revision through.

For the assessment of disability, the notification applies the Haryana Health Department notification No. 28/195-82-5hb-1 dated 21 March 1989, and the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment guidelines No. 16-89/97-NI.1 dated 1 June 2001 and No. 16-18/97-NI.1 dated 18 February 2002.

Who is eligible for this Haryana acid attack assistance?

You can get the assistance if:

• You are a male or transgender acid attack victim residing in Haryana.
• You had been residing in Haryana for at least 3 years prior to the date of the acid attack.
• You hold a permanent disability certification. The notification states that victims who have permanent disability certification will be eligible for the monthly pension.
• Your certified disability is 40 percent or more, which is the entry point of the lowest slab.
• The attack was caused by another person.

The notification also covers a case many applicants assume is excluded: if the acid attack took place outside the state of Haryana but the victim is a resident of Haryana as per the eligibility criteria above, the benefits of the scheme apply to them.

You are not eligible if:

• You are a government employee. The notification says plainly that government employees shall not be eligible for financial assistance.
• The injury was self-inflicted, whether deliberately or inadvertently.
• Your certified disability is below 40 percent, which falls outside every slab.
• You had not completed 3 years of residence in Haryana before the date of the attack.
• You are already drawing another social security pension. An individual is eligible to claim only one pension, and if a case is approved for acid attack victim assistance the person is not eligible for any other kind of social security pension.

What documents are required?

The District Medical Board certificate is the single most important document, because the percentage it records determines which of the three slabs applies. The difference between the 40–50 percent slab and the above-60 percent slab is Rs 6,400 a month at current rates.

How to apply for the acid attack assistance

1. Get the percentage of permanent disability certified by the Medical Board at district level in the district where the application will be made.
2. Obtain a copy of the FIR or complaint relating to the acid attack from the police station concerned.
3. Apply to the District Social Welfare Officer for relief. The notification allows the victim to apply personally, or the parents or legal guardians to apply. For a minor victim, the application may be made on their behalf by a parent or guardian. For a married victim, it may be made by the spouse or a parent.
4. Attach the Medical Board certificate, FIR or complaint copy, Aadhaar, residence proof and bank passbook, and submit the file with an acknowledgement.
5. Once sanctioned, submit the annual undertaking to the District Social Welfare Officer on 1 April every year, confirming that you continue to meet all the eligibility criteria.

The Antyodaya-SARAL portal at saralharyana.gov.in handles the Social Justice and Empowerment Department's pension services, so a district office may route your application through it. The notification's own route, however, is a direct application to the DSWO, and that is the safer starting point for this scheme.

Confidentiality and the annual undertaking

Two procedural provisions in the 2019 notification matter to beneficiaries.

Confidentiality. In the interest of keeping the identity of the victim confidential, the notification directs that NIC shall ensure that, like the other documents connected to the acid attack victim, the affidavit also remains visible only to the District Social Welfare Officer. Acid attack case files are therefore not open to general departmental viewing.

The annual undertaking. To ensure that the victim continues to meet the eligibility criteria over the period the benefit accrues, an annual undertaking must be submitted to the District Social Welfare Officer on 1 April every year. NIC ensures that payment of the benefit is linked to the submission of that undertaking, which must be uploaded on the portal. In practice this means a missed 1 April undertaking stops the monthly pension until it is filed.

The notification further provides that if the undertaking is at any time found to be incorrect, the benefit under the scheme stands withdrawn from the date on which the incorrect submission by the victim is identified.

Why applications get rejected or payments stop

• Annual undertaking not submitted on 1 April, which is the commonest cause of a stopped payment rather than a rejected application.
• Disability certified below 40 percent, placing the case outside all three slabs.
• Certificate from a hospital rather than the District Medical Board.
• No FIR or complaint copy, which the notification lists as a required supporting document.
• Residence in Haryana of less than 3 years before the attack.
• Applicant is a government employee, an express exclusion.
• Another social security pension already active against the same person.

Where the disability has worsened since the original certification, ask the District Medical Board for a re-assessment — moving from the 40–50 percent slab to the above-60 percent slab nearly doubles the monthly amount.

Related scheme for women and girls

Haryana runs a parallel scheme, Financial Assistance to Women and Girls Acid Attack Victims, on the same 2.5x, 3.5x and 4.5x Divyang pension slabs. That scheme was implemented through notifications in 2019 and 2020, and assistance under it begins from the date of application with no retrospective payment. Women and girl victims should apply under that scheme rather than this one; the eligibility structure and document list are closely aligned.

Grievance route

• District Social Welfare Officer at the district headquarters, the sanctioning authority, the custodian of the confidential file, and the officer who receives the annual undertaking.
• Directorate of Social Justice and Empowerment, SCO 20-27, Jeevandeep Building, 3rd floor, Sector 17-A, Chandigarh: phone 0172-2715090, email sje[at]hry[dot]nic[dot]in.
• Haryana State Legal Services Authority, for the separate victim compensation payable under the Victim Compensation Scheme, which is distinct from this monthly pension.

Applying is free. No official will ask for your OTP, and no agent can charge a fee to get a victim's name added to the beneficiary list.

How to check your application status

This scheme is applied for offline at the District Social Welfare Officer (DSWO), so there is no separate case-tracking number to look up on a public dashboard. Status has to be confirmed through the office that is actually processing the file.

1. Keep the acknowledgement from submission. When the file was handed in at the DSWO office, it should have been logged and an acknowledgement given. Quote that reference (or the date of submission and the victim's name) whenever you follow up, since the department does not issue a separate portal tracking ID for this notification's direct-application route.
2. Follow up with the DSWO office in person or by phone first. Because the notification requires the victim's file to stay confidential and visible only to the District Social Welfare Officer, that office, not any call centre or generic helpline, is the one place that can actually see where a case stands: whether it is still awaiting Medical Board certification, sitting with the DSWO for sanction, or already approved and sent for payment.
3. Call the Directorate of Social Justice and Empowerment at 0172-2715090 if the district office is unresponsive or the case has been pending an unusually long time. The directorate in Chandigarh can ask the concerned DSWO for an update on a specific file.
4. Where the district routed the application through saralharyana.gov.in, ask the DSWO whether the case can be checked on that portal using the applicant's details; some pension cases under this department move through Antyodaya-SARAL even though the notification's own prescribed route is a direct application to the DSWO.
5. Once sanctioned, check your bank account for the monthly DBT credit rather than expecting a status message. Because the scheme pays via Aadhaar-seeded bank transfer, a missing month's payment after approval usually means the annual undertaking due on 1 April has not been filed or accepted, not that the case has been rejected. Confirm with the DSWO whether that year's undertaking is on record before assuming anything else has gone wrong.
6. If the case has been sanctioned and then payments stop, ask the DSWO specifically whether the pause is linked to the annual undertaking, a change in certified disability, or drawing another social security pension, since the notification ties continued payment to each of these being current.

Because acid attack case files are kept confidential and are not posted on any public list, a status update will only ever come from the DSWO or the Directorate directly, not from a general RTI-style public register.