Sant Surdas Scheme (Sant Surdas Yojana)

What is the Sant Surdas Scheme?

Sant Surdas Scheme is a disability pension run by the Social Justice and Empowerment Department of the Government of Gujarat, administered through the Director of Social Defence and the District Social Defence Officers in each of Gujarat's districts. The scheme is commonly written in Gujarati as Sant Surdas Yojana, and readers will also see it spelled Sant Surdash.

Sant Surdas Scheme pays Rs 1,000 every month to a child with a severe disability who lives in a family that is officially recorded as Below Poverty Line. The money is paid by Direct Benefit Transfer into a bank account, not as cash or a voucher, and it continues month after month until the child turns 18.

The scheme fills a real gap. A child with 80 per cent or more disability in a poor household usually needs a full-time carer, which removes an adult from paid work at exactly the moment the family's medical costs rise. Sant Surdas Scheme does not attempt to cover treatment costs — it is a maintenance allowance meant to make it possible for one parent to stay home, and to cover the recurring costs of transport to a hospital, nutrition and consumables such as diapers, catheters or replacement parts for an aid.

Key features

• State-funded scheme, 100 per cent from the Gujarat budget, with no central share to wait for.
• Paid monthly by DBT, so no beneficiary needs to collect the money in person.
• Sanctioned at district level by the District Social Defence Officer.
• No renewal application is needed each year, though the district office may call for a life certificate or a fresh verification.
• The benefit belongs to the child; where the child is a minor, the payment reaches the account of the child or the natural guardian.

The Gujarat Chief Minister's Office has separately announced an expanded eligibility threshold of 50 per cent disability for a two-wheeler assistance component carrying the Sant Surdas name. That announcement concerns the vehicle assistance component and not the monthly maintenance pension described here — for the monthly pension, the 80 per cent disability threshold is the one published on the scheme record.

Who is eligible for the Sant Surdas Scheme?

A child qualifies if all of the following are true:

• The child is aged 0 to 17 years on the date of application. The pension runs until the 18th birthday.
• The child has a disability certified at 80 per cent or more by a competent medical authority in Gujarat.
• The child holds a state-issued disability identity card or a UDID card.
• The family appears on the Below Poverty Line list with a BPL score of 20 or less. A score above 20 disqualifies the household even if it is on the list.
• The child is a native and resident of Gujarat.

Who cannot apply

• Adults aged 18 and above are not eligible under Sant Surdas Scheme. They must use the adult disability pension route instead.
• A child whose certified disability is below 80 per cent cannot apply for the monthly pension, however serious the condition looks in daily life.
• Families not on the BPL list, or on the list with a score above 20, cannot apply.
• Families resident outside Gujarat cannot apply, even if the child is treated at a Gujarat hospital.
• A household already drawing another state or central disability maintenance pension for the same child may not draw Sant Surdas Scheme simultaneously; the district office checks for duplicate benefits before sanction.

The 80 per cent line is the single most misunderstood rule. Disability percentage is a medical assessment made against the schedule under the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, and it is not the same thing as how disabling a condition feels. A family whose certificate reads 60 or 75 per cent should not apply for this pension; they should instead check whether a re-assessment is medically justified, and in parallel look at the disability aid, scholarship and travel concession schemes that use lower thresholds.

What documents are required for the Sant Surdas Scheme?

Scan every document as a clear PDF or JPG before starting the online form. The e-Samaj Kalyan upload boxes have per-file size limits, and a blurred photograph of a disability certificate is one of the most common causes of a case being returned for correction rather than rejected outright.

How to apply for the Sant Surdas Scheme

1. Obtain the disability certificate first. Attend the disability assessment camp or the civil hospital in your district, get the child assessed, and collect a certificate stating the percentage. Nothing else in the process can start until this exists.
2. Confirm the BPL score. Ask the Talati-cum-Mantri in a village, or the ward office in a town, for a written extract of the family's BPL entry showing the score. Verify it is 20 or below.
3. Open the official portal esamajkalyan.gujarat.gov.in and register as a new individual user with a mobile number and email, then log in with the user ID sent to you.
4. Select the Director Social Defence directorate and choose the Sant Surdas Scheme from the scheme list.
5. Fill the application with the child's name, date of birth, disability percentage, certificate number, guardian details, address and bank account number, then upload the scanned documents.
6. Submit and print the acknowledgement, which carries an application number. Keep this number — every status enquiry needs it.
7. Submit the printed application with self-attested photocopies to the District Social Defence Officer if your district office asks for a physical set, which several districts still do.
8. Wait for verification and sanction. Once sanctioned, the first monthly credit arrives in the linked bank account.

How to apply offline for the Sant Surdas Scheme

1. Visit the District Social Defence Officer's office at the district headquarters, or the Gram Panchayat's Village Computer Entrepreneur, and ask for the Sant Surdas Yojana application form.
2. Fill the form in Gujarati or English and attach self-attested copies of the disability certificate, BPL extract, Aadhaar, bank passbook and age proof.
3. Submit the set at the counter and take a stamped receipt with the inward number and date.
4. Follow up at the same office after three to four weeks quoting the inward number.

The offline route matters. Many families with a severely disabled child cannot easily reach an internet point, and Gujarat has kept the counter route open precisely for them.

How do I check my Sant Surdas application status?

Log in to esamajkalyan.gujarat.gov.in with the same user ID used for the application and open the application status or my applications section. The portal shows one of a small set of states: pending at data entry, pending verification, sanctioned, or returned for correction.

If the status reads returned for correction, the portal usually names the document at fault. Re-upload only that document rather than starting a new application, because a duplicate application slows the case rather than speeding it up.

For payment, check the linked bank account passbook or the account's SMS alerts. A month's credit appearing late is far more often a bank seeding problem than a sanction problem.

Why do Sant Surdas applications get rejected?

• Disability percentage below 80 on the certificate — the single most frequent cause.
• BPL score above 20, or the family missing from the BPL list entirely.
• Child already 18 or turning 18 during processing.
• Bank account not seeded with Aadhaar, so the DBT credit bounces back.
• Name mismatch between the disability certificate, Aadhaar and the bank record. Even a spelling difference between the Gujarati and English versions of a name can hold a case up.
• Expired disability certificate, where a temporary certificate was issued with a review date that has passed.
• Duplicate claim, where another disability maintenance pension is already running for the same child.

Most of these are fixable. A bank seeding failure is resolved by taking the Aadhaar card and passbook to the branch and asking for Aadhaar seeding under the NPCI mapper. A name mismatch is resolved by correcting the weakest record — usually the bank record — to match Aadhaar exactly.

Where do I raise a complaint about the Sant Surdas Scheme?

• District Social Defence Officer in your district is the first authority for a delayed sanction or a stopped payment.
• Director of Social Defence, Social Justice and Empowerment Department, Gandhinagar, handles escalations against a district office.
• e-Samaj Kalyan grievance link on esamajkalyan.gujarat.gov.in accepts written complaints tied to an application number.
• State Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities, Gujarat can be approached where a disability certificate or a rights issue is at the heart of the dispute rather than a paperwork error.

Sant Surdas Scheme is free at every stage. No officer, agent or intermediary is permitted to charge for getting a child's name added, and any demand for money should be reported to the District Social Defence Officer in writing.