Old Age Samman Allowance

What is the Old Age Samman Allowance?

Old Age Samman Allowance is Haryana's state-funded old-age pension, run by the Directorate of Social Justice and Empowerment under the SEWA Department (Social Justice, Empowerment, Welfare of Scheduled Castes and Backward Classes and Antyodaya). The scheme is commonly searched for as "Budhapa Pension" or the Haryana old age pension, but the department's official title is Old Age Samman Allowance.

According to the Directorate of Social Justice and Empowerment, the allowance is Rs 3,200 per month with effect from 1 November 2025, up from Rs 3,000. The scheme is one of the oldest social security programmes in the state. It began in 1964 at Rs 15 per month, and the rate has been revised upward many times since. Payment is routed through the Public Financial Management System (PFMS) straight into the beneficiary's own bank account, so no cash changes hands at any office.

Old Age Samman Allowance is the largest of Haryana's fifteen social security pension schemes by beneficiary count. Departmental figures for 2023-24 record 17,85,137 beneficiaries against a budget of about Rs 5,538 crore, which puts it well ahead of the widow, disability and Ladli allowances in scale.

What the scheme is designed to do

• Give every low-income Haryana resident aged 60 or above a predictable monthly income floor.
• Pay through DBT so the money reaches the pensioner without intermediaries.
• Use the Parivar Pehchan Patra database to identify eligible seniors without repeated document collection.

Who is eligible for the Old Age Samman Allowance?

You can get the allowance if all of the following are true:

• You have completed 60 years of age. There is no upper age limit.
• You are domiciled in and a resident of Haryana.
• Your income and your spouse's income, added together and taken from all sources, does not exceed Rs 3,00,000 a year.
• You are not drawing a pension from a government or statutory source.

The income test is wider than most applicants assume. The department counts not just wages or business income but also accumulated earnings, provident fund receipts and annuities paid by banks or insurance companies. A senior with a small annuity and no salary can still cross the ceiling.

You cannot apply if:

• You are under 60 years old on the date of application.
• You already receive a pension from any government, local body or statutory body, or from any organisation substantially financed by one of these. This exclusion is stated plainly in the departmental scheme note.
• Your combined household income crosses Rs 3,00,000 a year.
• You are not a domiciled resident of Haryana.

A retired state or central government employee drawing a service pension is therefore not eligible, however small that pension is. So is a person drawing a pension from a public sector undertaking. What the exclusion does not cover is private savings held without any government or statutory pension attached. Those are tested only against the Rs 3,00,000 income ceiling.

What documents are required for the Haryana old age pension?

Fix the Parivar Pehchan Patra first. Most Haryana pension rejections come from a PPP record that carries a stale income figure or a wrong date of birth. Corrections are made at meraparivar.haryana.gov.in and take their own processing time, so start there before filing the pension application.

How to apply for the Old Age Samman Allowance online

1. Update your Parivar Pehchan Patra at meraparivar.haryana.gov.in so that your date of birth and the verified family income are correct and show you as 60 years or above with income within Rs 3,00,000.
2. Open the Antyodaya-SARAL portal at saralharyana.gov.in and register as a new user with your mobile number and email, or sign in to an existing account.
3. Select Apply for Services, search for the Old Age Samman Allowance service of the Social Justice and Empowerment Department, and open the form.
4. Enter your Family ID, Aadhaar number, date of birth, residence details and bank account particulars.
5. Upload scanned copies of the age proof, residence proof, income declaration and the first page of the bank passbook in the sizes the form specifies.
6. Submit the form and save the Application Reference ID shown on screen and sent to you by SMS.
7. Wait for verification and sanction by the District Social Welfare Officer, who checks the age proof against the PPP record before the pension is released.

How to apply offline

1. Visit your nearest SARAL Kendra, Common Service Centre, Gram Panchayat or Urban Local Body office, or the District Social Welfare Office, with your original documents and one set of copies.
2. Ask the operator to file the Old Age Samman Allowance application on the Antyodaya-SARAL portal on your behalf. The counters run the same system as the website.
3. Give your OTP or biometric confirmation where asked, and collect the printed acknowledgement carrying the Application Reference ID.

Applicants who cannot travel should note that SARAL counters operate at tehsil level as well as district headquarters, and that Gram Panchayat secretaries and Urban Local Body offices accept the paperwork in most districts.

How much pension is paid and when?

Old Age Samman Allowance pays Rs 3,200 per month, effective 1 November 2025. The rate is flat. The department does not pay a higher amount after 80 years, unlike the central NSAP pension it partly replaces. The credit reaches the Aadhaar-seeded bank account monthly through PFMS once sanction is issued.

The pension is not a one-time grant and does not need annual re-application. It continues as long as the pensioner stays alive, stays resident in Haryana, and the PPP income record stays within the ceiling. Rate revisions are applied automatically to sanctioned pensioners. The Rs 200 increase notified in 2025 was paid to existing beneficiaries without any fresh application, with retrospective effect from 1 November.

How to check your pension application status

1. Open saralharyana.gov.in and type your Application Reference ID into the Track Application Status box on the home page.
2. Or sign in to your SARAL account and open Track Application Status for the full history of the case.
3. After sanction, check your bank passbook or account statement before complaining about a missing payment. An unseeded account is the commonest cause of a sanctioned pension not arriving.

SMS alerts are sent at each stage, so keep the registered mobile number active and in the pensioner's own possession.

Common reasons for rejection and how to fix them

• PPP income above Rs 3,00,000 — correct the income entry through the Parivar Pehchan Patra grievance route, then re-apply.
• Date of birth mismatch. The PPP date of birth and the age proof must agree. Get the PPP corrected rather than submitting a second age document.
• Already drawing a government pension. This is a hard exclusion, not a paperwork issue, and cannot be cured.
• Bank account not Aadhaar-seeded. The sanction goes through but the DBT credit fails. Get the account seeded at the branch.
• Account not in the pensioner's own name. A joint or relative's account is rejected for DBT.
• Residence not established, attach a domicile certificate rather than a recent utility bill.

Where to complain if the pension is delayed

• Antyodaya-SARAL helpline: 0172-3968400, and the email saral.haryana@gov.in, working 7:00 AM to 8:00 PM Monday to Saturday.
• District Social Welfare Officer of your district, who is the sanctioning and verification authority for this allowance.
• CM Window, Haryana's central grievance platform, for cases stuck beyond the normal processing period.
• Parivar Pehchan Patra grievance redressal at meraparivar.haryana.gov.in where the problem is a wrong income or date-of-birth entry.

Applying for the Old Age Samman Allowance is free at every step. No official will ask you for money, and no agent can guarantee sanction, the case turns on the age proof, the PPP income record and the domicile document alone.