“A Pension Worth Less Than One Day’s Wage”, Beats in Brief, May 13, 2026
“In most Indian states a daily wage worker earns more in a single day than an elderly widow receives from the central government in an entire month. The Indira Gandhi National Old Age Pension Scheme pays Rs 200 per month to poor Indians aged 60 to 79. That amount has not changed since 2012. A government-commissioned impact assessment of the National Social Assistance Programme, submitted to the Ministry of Rural Development in 2026, has now put a number to what that freeze has cost the pension has lost nearly 45 per cent of its real value since it was last revised.
The report’s findings have renewed a debate that parliamentary committees and auditors have been raising for over a decade without result.
Five Schemes, One Common Problem
The National Social Assistance Programme runs five schemes covering India’s most economically vulnerable elderly persons, widows, disabled individuals and families that have lost their primary breadwinner. Every central benefit amount across all five schemes was last revised in 2012 and has remained unchanged since……”
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