Astha Card Yojana

What is Astha Card Yojana?

Astha Card Yojana is a Rajasthan scheme under which the Social Justice and Empowerment Department, through its Directorate of Specially Abled Persons, issues a single family identity card, the Astha Card (आस्था कार्ड), to households carrying an unusually heavy burden of disability.

The reasoning behind Astha Card Yojana is straightforward. Most state welfare benefits in Rajasthan are gated on Below Poverty Line status, which is decided on income and assets. A family with two disabled members, or with one child who has cerebral palsy or an intellectual disability, may sit just above the income line on paper while spending most of its earnings on care, medicines, attendants, travel to hospitals and assistive devices. Astha Card Yojana recognises that reality by treating such a family as equivalent to a BPL family for the purpose of state schemes and concessions, regardless of where its nominal income falls.

The card itself is therefore not a benefit. Astha Card Yojana is a gateway document: it converts the family's disability burden into a status that other departments recognise when they process an application.

Who is eligible for the Astha Card?

A family can apply if:

• The family is resident in Rajasthan and holds a Jan Aadhaar card.
• Two or more members of the family hold a valid disability certificate from a competent medical board, or
• One member of the family has a severe, mental or multiple disability: broadly, intellectual disability, cerebral palsy, autism, or more than one certified disability in the same person.
• The disabled members are part of the same household as recorded in Jan Aadhaar.

A family cannot apply if:

• No member holds a disability certificate from a competent medical board. A private doctor's letter or a hospital discharge summary is not accepted.
• Only one member is disabled and that disability is neither severe, mental nor multiple, a single member with a moderate locomotor or hearing disability, on its own, does not open the Astha Card.
• The family is not resident in Rajasthan.
• The disabled members belong to different households. The card follows the family unit, so two disabled cousins in separately recorded families do not combine to qualify either family.

A family that already holds a BPL ration card does not need the Astha Card to establish BPL status, though it may still hold one as proof of the disability burden.

What does the Astha Card actually get you?

Astha Card Yojana provides no cash transfer of its own. What the card does is place the family inside the BPL bracket for state welfare purposes, which matters in three practical ways:

• Scheme eligibility. Applications to state schemes that are restricted to BPL families can be filed on the strength of the Astha Card instead of a BPL ration card.
• Priority in disability schemes. Rajasthan runs a set of programmes for specially abled persons — assistive devices, scooties and motorised tricycles, scholarships, and the Vishesh Yogyajan disability pension. An Astha Card family carries visible priority when those lists are drawn.
• Single proof at the counter. Instead of producing separate certificates for each disabled member every time, the family produces one card.

The disability pension, scholarships and device schemes each remain separate applications with their own forms and criteria. Holding an Astha Card does not enrol the family into them automatically, and this is the single most common misunderstanding about the scheme.

What documents are required for the Astha Card?

How to apply for an Astha Card in Rajasthan

1. Get the disability certificates in place first. Each disabled member needs a certificate from a competent medical board. If you do not have one, get the member examined at the district hospital's disability board and register for a UDID card, which Rajasthan processes through the same district machinery.
2. Check and correct your Jan Aadhaar record. Every member of the household, including the disabled members, must appear in the family's Jan Aadhaar with names and dates of birth matching Aadhaar. Corrections are done at an e-Mitra kiosk before applying, not after.
3. Fill the Astha Card application at the district Social Justice and Empowerment office, or ask an e-Mitra operator to submit it for you. Rajasthan's SSO portal (sso.rajasthan.gov.in) is the login used for the department's online services where the district accepts them digitally.
4. Attach the document set: disability certificates, Jan Aadhaar, Aadhaar copies, domicile proof and photographs, and submit.
5. Collect the acknowledgement with the application number. Quote this number for any follow-up.
6. Collect the card from the district office once the application is approved, and check that every disabled member's name and disability percentage is printed correctly before leaving the counter.

How do you check an Astha Card application's status?

Astha Card applications are tracked at the district Social Justice and Empowerment office using the acknowledgement number, and an e-Mitra kiosk can pull up the status for you. The Jan Soochna portal (jansoochna.rajasthan.gov.in) publishes information on the state's schemes for specially abled persons, including UDID registration status, which is useful for confirming that the underlying disability record has gone through.

Why do Astha Card applications get rejected?

• Disability certificate not from a competent board. The most common single reason. Old certificates from an unauthorised issuing officer are set aside.
• Only one disabled member, disability not severe or multiple, so the qualifying condition is not met.
• Jan Aadhaar mismatch. A disabled member's name spelled differently in Aadhaar and Jan Aadhaar, or a member missing from the family record entirely.
• Members shown in different families, which breaks the "two or more members in the same family" test even when they live in one house.
• Expired certificate. Temporary disability certificates are issued with a validity period, and a lapsed one has to be renewed before the card is issued.

The fix in almost every case is documentary rather than legal: get the certificate reissued by the district medical board, or get the Jan Aadhaar record corrected at an e-Mitra kiosk, and resubmit.

Where do you complain about an Astha Card application?

• Rajasthan Sampark helpline: 181, which registers a trackable complaint number.
• Rajasthan Sampark portal for a written grievance against a district office.
• District Social Justice and Empowerment officer, who is the deciding authority and the first person to approach on a rejected file.
• Directorate of Specially Abled Persons, Jaipur, for cases the district office does not resolve.

No fee is charged by the department for issuing an Astha Card. Only the government-notified e-Mitra service charge is payable for assisted filing, and nobody can charge a fee for "getting the card approved".