Old Age Pension In Uttar Pradesh: Around 1 Mln Beneficiaries Added In 8 Months, Total Reaches 6.75 Mln

The number of old-age pension beneficiaries in Uttar Pradesh has risen to 6.75 million, and around 983,000 beneficiaries have been added over the last eight months. The state government has also recently approved the proposal for automatic identification of beneficiaries to weed out ineligible ones. For this purpose, the state social welfare department has implemented the Aadhaar-based authentication and real-time monitoring to remove the fake and fraudulent beneficiaries and applications, Asim Arun, Minister of State (Independent charge) for social welfare said.

He said that step has been initiated to ensure that pension benefits reach eligible beneficiaries only, according to a report in the Times of India. He added that in 2024, around 177,000 beneficiaries, who were deceased or ineligible, were removed from the beneficiaries list, and in 2025, around 332,000 names were removed to ensure that only genuine applicants received pension.

In 2024, around six million elderly citizens received a pension under the scheme. Now, this number has grown to over 67 lakh, which reflects the focus and continuous efforts to enhance social security coverage.

In November 2025, the state government approved using digital measures in reforming the old-age pension system. It used the Family ID database, which stores details of all families in the state, such as primary earner, spouse, children, parents, siblings, and other dependents, to identify and disburse the benefits directly to beneficiaries’ accounts.

The database is also used for identifying people who are about to turn 60 years of age. Once identified, the government obtains their consent, for which it sends SMS, WhatsApp, and makes a phone call to the beneficiaries. In case there is no response, the department sends local officials to contact the beneficiaries in person and enrol them under the scheme.

The approval process was stipulated to be completed within 15 days of receiving the consent. Once it’s completed, the pension is transferred directly to the beneficiaries’ Aadhaar-linked bank account.  

The scheme offers a monthly pension of Rs 1,000 to eligible beneficiaries.

The government has been expanding the scheme for the last few years. Since 2017, the scheme coverage has grown significantly, from 3.74 million beneficiaries in 2017 to 6.75 million beneficiaries by now.