Indira Gandhi National Old Age Pension Scheme (IGNOAPS) — Sikkim

What is the Indira Gandhi National Old Age Pension Scheme in Sikkim?

Indira Gandhi National Old Age Pension Scheme (IGNOAPS) is the old-age component of the National Social Assistance Programme, and in Sikkim it is administered by the Women, Child, Senior Citizen and Divyangjan Welfare Department through its NSAP Division. According to the department's online registration system at pensionscheme.sikkim.gov.in, IGNOAPS is one of seven pension and assistance schemes handled on a single platform, alongside the widow pension, the national and state disability pensions, the National Family Benefit Scheme, the Sikkim Unmarried Women Pension and the Sikkim Grant of Award to Transgender.

IGNOAPS pays a monthly cash pension to elderly residents of Below Poverty Line households. Sikkim pays a substantially higher rate than the central assistance alone, because the state adds its own share on top of the central contribution. The portal states plainly that the published amounts consist of a central and a state share.

Key features

• Three age slabs, so the pension rises as the beneficiary gets older.
• Paid monthly into the beneficiary's own bank account, opened under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana.
• One pension per family where both husband and wife are elderly.
• Registration is online through the Sikkim GO single-window portal.
• Continuation depends on an annual life certificate.

How much does the Sikkim old age pension pay?

The Women and Child Welfare Department publishes the following rates for IGNOAPS in Sikkim:

The department's incentives table describes these amounts as consisting of a central and a state share. Under the National Social Assistance Programme, the Government of India contributes a fixed central assistance for each old-age pensioner and the state government tops it up; in Sikkim's case, the top-up takes the pension well above the central figure at every age slab.

For comparison against the other schemes on the same portal, the Indira Gandhi National Widow Pension and the Indira Gandhi National Disability Pension are each Rs 2,000 per month, the Sikkim Unmarried Women Pension is Rs 2,000 per month, the Chief Minister's State Disability Pension is Rs 1,500 per month, and the National Family Benefit Scheme is a one-time grant of Rs 30,000.

Who is eligible for the Sikkim old age pension?

You can be enrolled if all of the following are true.

• You have attained 60 years of age. This is the only age-specific criterion the portal lists for IGNOAPS.
• You are a resident of Sikkim and hold a Sikkim Subject Certificate, Certificate of Identification or Residential Certificate, whichever applies in your case.
• You belong to a Below Poverty Line household and hold an Antyodaya Anna Yojana or Priority Household ration card in terms of rule 6 of the Sikkim Food Security Rules, 2014 read with Notification No. 4/SJE & WD dated 1 February

• You possess an Aadhaar card.
• You have a bank account opened under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, into which the pension is credited.

You cannot apply, or are not eligible, in these situations.

• You are below 60 years of age. Someone aged 45 to 59 should look at a different scheme on the same portal, for example the Sikkim Unmarried Women Pension, which starts at 45 years.
• Your household is above the poverty line and does not hold an Antyodaya or Priority Household ration card.
• You cannot produce a Sikkim Subject Certificate, Certificate of Identification or Residential Certificate, which means residence in the state is not established.
• Your spouse is already drawing the old age pension. Where both husband and wife are elderly and eligible, only one member of the family is awarded the pension.
• You do not hold Aadhaar or have no Jan Dhan bank account. These are general criteria applied to every pension on the Sikkim portal, so an application without them will not clear scrutiny.

What documents are required for IGNOAPS in Sikkim?

How to apply for the Sikkim old age pension online

1. Open the department's pension portal at pensionscheme.sikkim.gov.in and read the eligibility and incentives sections so you know which slab applies to you.
2. Select Apply Now. The portal routes you to Sikkim GO, the state's single-window sign-on service at sso.sikkim.gov.in.
3. Create a Sikkim GO account if you do not have one, or log in with your mobile number and the one-time password, your username and password, or e-Pramaan.
4. Open the Pension Scheme Registration service listed under the Women and Child Development Department in the Sikkim GO service directory.
5. Select Indira Gandhi National Old Age Pension as the scheme and fill in your personal, residence, ration card, Aadhaar and bank details exactly as they appear on the documents.
6. Upload scanned copies of the Sikkim Subject Certificate or Certificate of Identification, the BPL ration card, Aadhaar, age proof and the Jan Dhan passbook, then submit the application.
7. Save the acknowledgement or application number shown on screen. You need it to follow up with the NSAP Division.

If you cannot complete the form yourself, a Common Service Centre village level entrepreneur can log into Sikkim GO on your behalf; the SSO home page carries a dedicated CSC login for exactly this purpose.

How to apply offline or with help in Sikkim

1. Collect your Sikkim Subject Certificate or Certificate of Identification, BPL ration card, Aadhaar card, age proof and bank passbook.
2. Visit your Block Administrative Centre or the district office and ask for the pension counter. Field staff of the Rural Development Department and the Gram Vikash Adhikari of your gram panchayat unit are the first contact for elderly residents in rural Sikkim.
3. Ask for assistance in filing the application through the Sikkim GO portal, or approach a Common Service Centre listed by the state.
4. If the matter is not resolved locally, write to the NSAP Division, Women, Child, Senior Citizen and Divyangjan Welfare Department, Government of Sikkim, Gangtok.

How do you keep a Sikkim pension running?

Sikkim requires every pensioner to file a life certificate once a year. The department's portal carried a notice fixing 28 February as the last date for submission of the life certificate for the year 2026, and marked the notice expired once that date passed. The life certificate confirms that the beneficiary is alive and still resident in the state.

Two more things affect a running pension. First, the pension slab changes with age, so a beneficiary who turns 70 or 80 should confirm with the department that the higher rate of Rs 2,000 or Rs 2,500 has been applied. Second, the money is credited to the bank account recorded at the time of registration, so a change of bank or branch must be reported to the department in writing.

Why do Sikkim old age pension applications get rejected?

• Age below 60 years on the date of application, established from the age proof rather than the applicant's own statement.
• No BPL ration card, or a ration card of a category other than Antyodaya Anna Yojana or Priority Household.
• Residence not established because the Sikkim Subject Certificate, Certificate of Identification or Residential Certificate is missing.
• Spouse already drawing the pension, since only one member of a family is awarded the old age pension.
• Bank account not a Jan Dhan account, or account details that do not match the name on Aadhaar.
• Life certificate not filed by the annual cut-off, which stops an existing pension rather than a new application.

Most of these are fixable. Correct the document, then resubmit through the same Sikkim GO login rather than starting a fresh account, so the department can see the earlier application.

Where to raise a grievance

Grievances on the Sikkim old age pension go to the NSAP Division of the Women, Child, Senior Citizen and Divyangjan Welfare Department at Gangtok. Sikkim citizens can also use CPGRAMS, the Centralised Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System, which the state's departmental sites link to directly. For questions about the online form itself, the Sikkim GO portal is operated by the Department of Information Technology, Government of Sikkim.

No fee is payable to register for IGNOAPS in Sikkim, and no agent can charge you for adding a name to the pension list. Registration on Sikkim GO and the department's pension portal is free.

How to check your IGNOAPS application status in Sikkim

1. Go back to pensionscheme.sikkim.gov.in and select the Sikkim GO login option, the same single sign-on you used to apply.
2. Log in with the mobile number and one-time password, or the username and password, you registered with at the time of application.
3. Open your application dashboard or service history inside Sikkim GO. Applications submitted through the Pension Scheme Registration service show a status such as pending at the block or district level, forwarded to the NSAP Division, sanctioned, or returned for correction.
4. If the portal shows the application as sanctioned but no pension has been credited, check the bank passbook of the Jan Dhan account you registered, since payment can lag sanction by a cycle.
5. Keep the acknowledgement number or application number generated when you first submitted the form. This number is what any office asks for when you follow up, whether online or in person.

If you applied offline, or a Common Service Centre or Gram Vikash Adhikari filed the form on your behalf, the online dashboard may not reflect the latest movement of your file straight away. In that case:

• Visit the Block Administrative Centre or district office where the application was filed and ask the pension counter to check the file status against your application number.
• Contact the Gram Vikash Adhikari of your gram panchayat unit, who is usually the first point of contact for rural applicants and can confirm whether the file has moved to the district or to the NSAP Division.
• For a file stuck beyond a reasonable time with no update either online or at the block office, write to the NSAP Division, Women, Child, Senior Citizen and Divyangjan Welfare Department, Government of Sikkim, Gangtok, quoting the application number and the date of submission.
• Sikkim residents can also raise the matter on CPGRAMS, the central grievance portal, if the department does not respond to a direct query.

There is no separate SMS or phone-based status check specific to IGNOAPS on the Sikkim portal at present, so the Sikkim GO login and the block-level pension counter remain the two reliable ways to track a submitted application.