Uttar Pradesh Leprosy Pension Scheme (Kushth Rog Bharan Poshan Anudan)

What is the Uttar Pradesh Leprosy Pension Scheme?

Uttar Pradesh Leprosy Pension Scheme is a monthly maintenance grant; in Hindi, a kushth rog bharan poshan anudan; paid by the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, Government of Uttar Pradesh, to a person disabled by leprosy. The department is widely known by its Hindi name, Divyangjan Sashaktikaran Vibhag, and it runs this grant alongside the state's general divyang pension of Rs 1,000 a month.

The reason leprosy carries its own pension line rather than sitting inside the general disability pension is worth stating plainly. Leprosy in India is medically curable and has been for decades, but the disability it leaves behind: nerve damage, loss of sensation, deformity of the hands and feet, ulcers that recur for life, does not go away when the infection is cured. On top of that, a person who has had leprosy faces a form of social exclusion that few other disabilities attract. Households refuse work, landlords refuse tenancy, and family support often collapses. The maintenance grant exists because that combination of physical damage and social exclusion destroys earning capacity in a way a general disability pension was not designed to capture.

The grant is fully funded by the Government of Uttar Pradesh, sanctioned district by district, and paid through the Aadhaar Based Payment System into the beneficiary's own bank account.

How much does the scheme pay?

Uttar Pradesh notifies a fixed monthly rate for the leprosy maintenance grant, set separately from the Rs 1,000 a month paid under the general divyang pension. The rate has been revised by the state government more than once, and the department's own pages describe pension rates as subject to adjustment by the state.

Because of that, the honest instruction is: confirm the current rate on sspy-up.gov.in or with your District Divyangjan Kalyan Adhikari before you build it into a household budget. Do not rely on a figure quoted on a private website or in an old news report, and do not assume it matches the divyang pension rate, it does not.

What is stable, and useful to know in advance, is the payment mechanism. Money moves through the Aadhaar Based Payment System, which routes the transfer to whichever bank account is currently seeded against the beneficiary's Aadhaar number. If a pensioner later seeds a different account, the pension follows the newly seeded account rather than the account number written on the original form.

Who is eligible for the Uttar Pradesh leprosy pension?

You can get the grant if all of these hold together:

• You are a permanent resident of Uttar Pradesh.
• You are disabled by leprosy, certified by a competent medical authority. The certificate must establish disability caused by leprosy, not merely a past diagnosis.
• Your family income is within the limit the department applies to its pension schemes, evidenced by a tehsil-issued income certificate.
• You hold a bank account in your own name, seeded with your Aadhaar number.

You cannot apply, or will be found not eligible, if:

• You are already drawing another state pension — the divyang pension, old age pension, widow pension or a similar state grant. Uttar Pradesh permits only one such pension per person, and a duplicate claim is caught at verification and rejected.
• You cannot produce a medical certificate from a competent authority establishing leprosy-caused disability. A hospital treatment slip or an outpatient card is not a substitute.
• Your family income exceeds the departmental limit, or your income certificate has passed the validity period the tehsil allows.
• You are not a permanent resident of Uttar Pradesh, even if you currently live and work in the state.
• The bank account you supply is a joint account or someone else's account rather than a single account in your own name.

One further line from the department's pension rules deserves attention: payment to new applicants is made according to the availability of budget, on a first-come-first-served basis. Meeting every condition establishes entitlement, but the actual start of payment depends on a sanction slot opening in your district. Applying early in a financial year is practically better than applying late.

What documents are required?

Scan each document as a clear, readable image or PDF before starting the online form. The state pension portal rejects blurred uploads, and a rejected upload sends the whole application back a stage.

How to apply for the Uttar Pradesh leprosy pension

1. Open the state's Integrated Pension Portal at sspy-up.gov.in and select the pension section administered by the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities.
2. Choose the new application (New Entry Form) option to open a fresh form.
3. Fill the personal block: name, father's or husband's name, date of birth, gender, category, district, tehsil, block and full address.
4. Enter the medical certificate details exactly as printed: the certificate number, the issuing authority and the date. A digit wrong here stalls the file at verification.
5. Enter your bank details: bank name, branch, account number and IFSC. Check every digit; a wrong IFSC is the commonest cause of a failed credit.
6. Upload the photograph, the medical certificate, the income certificate, the age proof and the bank passbook page in the sizes the form specifies.
7. Submit the form and note the registration number shown on screen, then print or save the acknowledgement.
8. Log back in with that registration number and complete the final submit step if the portal asks for it. An application left at draft stage is never forwarded for verification, and this trips up more applicants than any other single step.

How to apply offline or with assistance

1. Visit a Jan Suvidha Kendra, a Lokvani centre or a Common Service Centre with your originals and one photocopy set.
2. Ask the operator to file the application on sspy-up.gov.in in your name, and watch the screen while the certificate details and bank account are typed.
3. Collect the printed acknowledgement carrying your registration number before you leave the counter.
4. Where no centre is reachable, approach the District Divyangjan Kalyan Adhikari at the collectorate, whose office files applications for people who cannot use the portal.

The application itself is free. A Jan Suvidha Kendra may charge only the small government-notified service fee for assisted filing. Nobody can charge you for "getting the pension approved".

How to check your status

1. Open sspy-up.gov.in and go to the relevant pension section.
2. Log in with your registration or application number and the password you created.
3. Read the status line, it shows whether the form is pending at the tehsil, under verification, sanctioned, or rejected with a reason.
4. Use the pensioner list option to search by district, block or gram panchayat and confirm your name appears in the sanctioned list.

If your name is in the list but no money has arrived, the fault is almost always at the bank: an un-seeded Aadhaar, a dormant account, or a KYC hold. Visit the branch before filing a grievance, because a departmental complaint cannot repair a bank-side problem.

Who verifies the application and who decides?

Field verification runs through the tehsil and block machinery, and the consolidated district proposal goes up for approval. Under the department's pension rules the District Magistrate's approval is required, and the DM's decision on beneficiary eligibility is final. An applicant who disputes a rejection should make a representation to the DM's office through the District Divyangjan Kalyan Adhikari rather than simply filing a fresh online form, because a second form with the same defect will be rejected the same way.

Why applications get rejected

• Medical certificate does not establish disability caused by leprosy, or was not issued by a competent authority.
• Another state pension already running in the same name, the duplicate check catches old age, widow and divyang pensions.
• Income certificate above the limit, or older than the tehsil's validity period.
• Aadhaar not seeded with the bank account, so the payment file fails after sanction.
• Name mismatch between the Aadhaar record, the bank account and the medical certificate.
• Joint account or a third party's account given instead of the applicant's own single account.
• Form saved but never finally submitted, so it never reached the verifying officer.

Most of these are repairable. A rejected application can be filed again once the underlying document is corrected, and there is no bar on reapplying.

Help and grievance redressal

• Directorate of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, 9th floor, Indira Bhavan, Ashok Marg, Lucknow 226001 to phone 0522-3511020, email dir.hwd-up@gov.in.
• District Divyangjan Kalyan Adhikari at your collectorate, for certificate, verification and sanction-stage problems.
• Jansunwai at jansunwai.up.nic.in for a written grievance; keep the complaint number for follow-up.

Two cautions worth repeating. No official will ever ask for your OTP or your bank password to release a pension. And because the notified rate for this grant has been revised more than once, check the current figure on sspy-up.gov.in rather than relying on any secondary source.