National Award for Senior Citizens (Vayoshreshtha Samman): Best State in Implementing the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007

What is the Vayoshreshtha Samman "Best State" award?

The Vayoshreshtha Samman is a group of national awards instituted by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment to recognise the service and welfare of senior citizens. The awards were first instituted in 2005 and were elevated to the status of National Awards in 2013. According to the Ministry, they are conferred each year on 1 October, the International Day of Older Persons, at a national ceremony.

Within this framework sits the category "Best State in implementing the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007, and providing services and facilities to senior citizens". Under this category, a State or Union Territory, not an individual or an NGO, is honoured for its governance record on the elderly: how effectively it has enforced the 2007 Act and how well it has built services and facilities for older persons.

What the 2007 Act requires of States

• Setting up maintenance tribunals so senior citizens can claim maintenance from children or relatives.
• Establishing and running old-age homes.
• Providing medical, service and protection facilities for senior citizens.

The Best State award effectively measures a government against these obligations.

Who is eligible for the "Best State" award?

Eligible for this category:

• State governments and Union Territory administrations, assessed on their implementation of the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007 and on services and facilities created for senior citizens.

Not eligible / cannot apply:

• Individuals cannot apply. This category recognises a government's performance, so no citizen, senior citizen or family member can nominate themselves or apply for it.
• NGOs, old-age homes and institutions cannot apply here. They are recognised under separate Vayoshreshtha Samman institutional categories, not under the Best State category.
• Across the Vayoshreshtha Samman, past recipients of Padma Awards, earlier Vayoshreshtha Samman or other national awards in the same category are generally not eligible to be honoured again.

If you are an individual who works for senior-citizen welfare, the relevant route is one of the individual Vayoshreshtha Samman categories, publicised separately by the Ministry, not this State-performance award.

What is submitted for the "Best State" award?

How to apply for the Vayoshreshtha Samman "Best State" award

This is not a citizen scheme; it runs through State governments. The steps below describe the real institutional route.

1. The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment issues a call for nominations ahead of the 1 October ceremony.
2. Each State/UT government compiles a nomination dossier documenting its implementation of the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007 and the services and facilities it provides to senior citizens.
3. The State/UT submits the nomination to the Department of Social Justice and Empowerment through the official channel and format specified in the call.
4. The Ministry evaluates the nominations and selects the best-performing State/UT for the year.
5. The award, a citation and memento: is conferred on 1 October at the national Vayoshreshtha Samman function.

An individual who wants their State to be considered can only raise the issue with their State's Department of Social Justice / social welfare; the individual cannot file a nomination.

What does the award carry?

For the Best State category, the recognition is a Vayoshreshtha Samman citation and memento, presented at the national ceremony. The honour is reputational and governance-focused rather than monetary. Several institutional categories within the Vayoshreshtha Samman do carry cash awards (reported in lakhs of rupees), but the State category recognises a government's performance and is marked by the citation and memento.

Help and contact

• The awards are administered by the Department of Social Justice and Empowerment, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment.
• A dedicated award helpline is not published; queries go to the Department through the official site socialjustice.gov.in, where the annual nomination advertisement and guidelines are released.

Because the Best State category is a government-performance award with no individual application, this guide is best read as background on how India recognises State performance on senior-citizen welfare, rather than as a scheme a reader can apply to.

How to check your application status

Because this category has no individual applicant and no online tracking portal, "status" here means the progress of a State or UT's nomination dossier through the Ministry's evaluation, not a personal application status. There is no citizen-facing tracking ID, SMS alert or portal login for this award.

For a State/UT nodal officer who has submitted a nomination, status can be followed in these ways:

1. Acknowledgement from the Department. After a nomination dossier is submitted, the State/UT social welfare or social justice department should receive a written or email acknowledgement from the Department of Social Justice and Empowerment confirming receipt. If no acknowledgement arrives within a reasonable time of the submission deadline, the nodal officer should follow up in writing rather than assume the dossier is under review.
2. Direct follow-up with the Department. Because there is no published tracking number or online dashboard, the practical route is a formal letter or email from the State/UT department to the Department of Social Justice and Empowerment, referencing the date and mode of submission, and requesting confirmation that the dossier is complete and under consideration.
3. Watching for the shortlist or evaluation committee stage. The Ministry typically constitutes a screening or evaluation process before the final selection; a State that has cleared this stage may be informally contacted for clarifications or additional data. No response at this stage does not necessarily mean rejection, since the Ministry does not publish a running shortlist.
4. The 1 October announcement. For all practical purposes, the definitive "status update" for this category is the public announcement of the winning State/UT at the national Vayoshreshtha Samman ceremony on 1 October, along with any press release the Ministry issues around that date. States not named as winners are not individually notified of the reason.
5. Checking socialjustice.gov.in for the next cycle. If a State's nomination is not selected in a given year, the department can watch the official portal for the next year's call for nominations and resubmit an updated dossier; there is no formal appeal or status-review mechanism for a missed cycle.

An individual citizen has no status to check at all under this category, since only governments nominate; a citizen who wants updates can only ask their own State's social welfare department whether it has submitted a nomination for a given year.

Common reasons for rejection

Since only State and UT governments can be nominated, "rejection" here refers to a State/UT's dossier not being selected, or being found ineligible for consideration, rather than an individual application being turned down. The recurring, documented reasons a State's case fails to succeed include:

• Nomination submitted after the deadline. The Ministry issues the call for nominations with a fixed submission window ahead of the 1 October ceremony. A dossier reaching the Department after that window closes is not considered for that year's award, regardless of how strong the underlying record is.
• Incomplete evidence of Act implementation. A common weakness is a dossier that asserts progress under the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007 without backing it with verifiable data, such as the number of maintenance tribunals functioning, old-age homes operating, or senior-citizen services actually delivered. Claims without supporting records and reports are harder for the evaluation process to credit.
• Format or channel not followed. If the Ministry specifies a particular format, set of headings or submission channel in its call for nominations and the State/UT department does not follow it, the dossier can be set aside on that basis alone before its substantive record is even weighed.
• Weaker comparative record than other States/UTs in that cycle. Since only one State or UT can win the Best State category in a given year, a dossier can be genuinely complete and well-supported and still not be selected simply because another State's implementation record, tribunal coverage or facilities for senior citizens were assessed as stronger that year.
• Confusing this category with an institutional or individual category. A State/UT department that submits material more suited to the institutional (old-age home, NGO) or individual Vayoshreshtha Samman categories, rather than State-level Act implementation data, weakens its own case under the Best State heading specifically.
• No resubmission after a missed year. Because there is no rolling status review, a State that is not selected in one cycle and does not actively resubmit an updated nomination in the following year's call effectively drops out of consideration; the Ministry does not carry a dossier forward automatically.

The fix in each case is procedural discipline on the State/UT side: submit within the window, follow the prescribed format, and back every claim about tribunals, homes and services with the supporting records and reports the Ministry's evaluation process can verify.