The Bihar government has demonstrated its commitment to improving the lives of disabled, elderly, widowed, and differently-abled individuals by increasing social security pension amounts by two and a half times. This decision will provide a monthly pension of ₹1100, up from ₹400, to a total of 11,122,825 beneficiaries under the social security scheme. The enhanced amount will be disbursed starting in July.
With this move, Bihar joins the ranks of states providing significant financial assistance to disabled individuals, with over 11.12 million people receiving ₹1100 monthly under the social security scheme. This decision will place an additional annual financial burden of ₹9202.84 crore on the state.
Previously, the Bihar government spent ₹5479.29 crore annually on social security schemes at the old pension rates, with ₹1438.72 crore contributed by the central government and ₹4040.58 crore by the Bihar government. The increase to ₹1100 per month will raise the total financial burden on all pension schemes to ₹14682.13 crore, leading to an additional annual expense of ₹9202.84 crore for the state government.
The decision to increase the pension amount from ₹400 to ₹1100 was made during a review of the women’s dialogue program chaired by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Saturday. According to the Directorate of Social Security, Bihar operates several social security schemes. These include the Indira Gandhi National Old Age Pension Scheme (35,59,807 beneficiaries), the Indira Gandhi National Widow Pension Scheme (6,32,596 beneficiaries), the Indira Gandhi National Disability Pension Scheme (1,10,581 beneficiaries), the Laxmibai Social Security Pension Scheme (8,64,922 beneficiaries), the Bihar Disability Pension Scheme (9,65,269 beneficiaries), and the Mukhyamantri Vridhjan Pension Yojana (49,89,650 beneficiaries).