Aasara Pension Scheme

What is the Aasara pension scheme?

Aasara is the Government of Telangana's social security pension scheme, launched on 8 November 2014 at Kothur in the then Mahbubnagar district. Aasara pays a monthly pension to poor households in several defined categories, the elderly, widows, single women, persons with disabilities, handloom weavers, toddy tappers, beedi workers, and people living with HIV or filaria (elephantiasis). The Telugu word aasara means support, and that is exactly the role the money plays: it is a floor under households that have no earning member.

Aasara is administered by the Department of Rural Development through the Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty (SERP) in rural areas, and by the municipal administration in urban areas. As of March 2018 the scheme reached around 42 lakh people, with an annual outlay of roughly Rs 5,500 crore, which makes it one of the largest state pension programmes in India by both coverage and cost.

The pension amounts have been revised upward several times since 2014. The rates in wide circulation are around Rs 2,016 a month for most categories and about Rs 3,016 a month for persons with disabilities. Because these rates are set by government order and have changed more than once, confirm the figure applying to your category at the Mandal Parishad Development Office before planning around it.

Who is eligible for the Aasara pension?

A person can be sanctioned an Aasara pension if:

• The person is a resident of Telangana and belongs to a poor household, usually established through the white ration card.
• The person falls into one of the notified categories:
• Old age, elderly people who have crossed the age threshold notified for the scheme. Telangana lowered this threshold below the usual 60 years, so check the current qualifying age at the Mandal office rather than assuming it.
• Widow. A woman whose husband has died, supported by a death certificate.
• Single woman, an unmarried, separated or deserted woman meeting the conditions in the relevant government order.
• Disability, assessed through a SADAREM certificate.
• Weavers, toddy tappers and beedi workers — occupational categories with their own proof requirements.
• HIV-positive persons and people with filaria, with the relevant medical certification.
• The person has an Aadhaar number and a bank account in their own name.

These applicants are not eligible:

• Households above the poverty line, or without a white ration card where that is the required proof.
• Income tax payers and members of their households.
• Serving or retired government employees drawing a service pension.
• People already drawing another government pension, including a second Aasara pension under a different category. One person, one pension is the rule.
• Non-residents of Telangana.
• Applicants who cannot produce the category-specific proof, for instance a disability claim without a SADAREM certificate, or a widow claim without a death certificate.

Duplicate detection is taken seriously. Because every sanction is tied to an Aadhaar number, a person already drawing a pension in one mandal cannot be sanctioned again elsewhere, and a person drawing both an old-age and a widow pension will have one of them stopped on audit.

What documents are required for the Aasara pension?

The category-specific document is what actually decides the file. An old-age application with an unclear age proof, or a disability application without SADAREM, will sit unprocessed no matter how complete the rest of the papers are.

How to apply for the Aasara pension

1. Collect the category document first. The SADAREM certificate, the husband's death certificate, or the occupation certificate, depending on which pension you are claiming. This takes the longest, so start here.
2. Open a bank account in the applicant's own name and get it seeded with Aadhaar at the branch for direct benefit transfer.
3. Go to the right office. The Gram Panchayat or the Mandal Parishad Development Office (MPDO) in rural areas, or the municipal ward office in urban areas. A MeeSeva centre can also accept the application.
4. Fill in the Aasara application form, stating the category clearly, and attach photocopies of Aadhaar, the ration card, the bank passbook, the residence proof and the category document.
5. Submit and collect an acknowledgement with a reference number and date. Do not leave the office without it.
6. Attend the field verification by the Panchayat Secretary, the Village Organisation or the municipal staff, who confirm residence, category and the household's economic status.
7. Complete biometric or Aadhaar authentication when called, which is what activates the payment.

There is no self-service online application for a new Aasara pension. Anyone offering to file one online for a fee is not doing something you cannot do yourself for free at the Panchayat office.

How do you check your Aasara pension status?

1. Ask the Panchayat Secretary in a village, or the ward office in a town, which holds the sanctioned pensioner list for that area.
2. Take the acknowledgement number from your application to the MPDO office and ask at which stage the file is sitting.
3. Check the payment record in your bank passbook, or with the business correspondent or post office through which the pension is disbursed in your area.
4. For a sanctioned pensioner, the pensioner search facility maintained by SERP on cheyutha.telangana.gov.in can confirm the record held against your ID.

Why do Aasara pensions get stopped?

• Annual life certificate or biometric verification not completed. This is the most common cause by a wide margin, and it stops pensions for people who are very much alive and eligible.
• Aadhaar not seeded to the bank account.
• Bank account dormant, closed or frozen, so the credit bounces.
• Name mismatch between the Aadhaar record and the bank record.
• Duplicate pension detected across categories or districts.
• Record flagged in a re-verification drive, for example where the household is reassessed as above the poverty line.
• Death of the pensioner not yet recorded, after which any amount drawn is recovered.

If a pension stops, go to the MPDO or ward office with the Aadhaar card and bank passbook and ask specifically whether the problem is the life certificate, the bank seeding, or a flag on the record. Those three questions resolve most cases.

What happens when a pensioner dies?

The pension stops from the month of death, and the family must inform the Panchayat Secretary or ward office and produce the death certificate. Continuing to draw a pension after a death results in recovery of the amount, and can create avoidable trouble for the family. Where the deceased was drawing an old-age pension and the surviving spouse is now a widow with no income, that survivor should file a fresh application under the widow category rather than try to continue the existing pension.

Where do you complain about an Aasara pension problem?

• Panchayat Secretary in the village, or the Ward Officer in a municipality, first point of contact for verification and life certificate issues.
• Mandal Parishad Development Officer (MPDO) for sanction, stoppage and payment problems in rural areas.
• Municipal Commissioner's office for urban pensioners.
• District Rural Development Officer / District Collectorate for escalation, including at the weekly public grievance day where petitions are registered with a reference number.

Applying for Aasara is free at every stage. No official fee is charged for the application, the verification or the sanction, and no agent has any role in getting a pension sanctioned.