The pension that never got a raise
India's central old-age pension has been ₹200 a month since 2006. The rupee amount never changed; prices more than tripled. What an elderly person actually receives now depends less on the Centre than on the accident of which state they live in.
Under the National Social Assistance Programme, the central government pays a pension to poor elderly people, widows, and persons with disabilities. For someone aged 60 to 79, the central share of the old-age pension is ₹200 a month. It has been ₹200 since 2006. In the years since, the price of nearly everything an old person buys — food, fuel, medicine — has more than tripled. The number on the pension order did not move at all.
Frozen at ₹200 since 2006, the central old-age pension has lost roughly two-thirds of its real value to inflation. To buy what ₹200 bought in 2006, you would need about ₹700 today. The government's own evaluation concedes a ~45% loss just since 2012 — and in 2025 told Parliament there is "no proposal under consideration" to raise it.
A number that stood still
Plot the pension two ways. The nominal amount — the rupees printed on the order — is a dead-flat line at ₹200 from 2006 to today. The real value — what those rupees actually buy, measured in 2006 prices — slides steadily downward as inflation eats it, to roughly ₹57 now. The distance between the two lines is the quiet cut that no one ever announced.
View data table
| Year | Nominal (₹) | Real value (2006 ₹) |
|---|---|---|
| 2006 | 200 | 200 |
| 2012 | 200 | ~122 |
| 2019 | 200 | ~77 |
| 2025 | 200 | ~57 |
The government does not entirely dispute this. A ministry-commissioned evaluation found that for the amounts frozen since 2012 — the ₹500 pension for the over-80s, and the ₹300 widow and disability pensions — real value had already fallen about 45%, and recommended an inflation-linked floor. The ₹200 old-age rate has been frozen six years longer than those, so its erosion is larger still. In August 2025 the government told Parliament that no increase was under consideration.
Same Centre, very different cheque
Because the central amount is so small and so frozen, what an elderly person actually receives is decided mostly by their state. States top up the ₹200 by anything from a few hundred rupees to several thousand. An old person in Andhra Pradesh or Haryana can receive fifteen to twenty times what the Centre pays; one in a low-topping-up state receives a fraction of that. The central slice — ₹200 — is identical in every bar below.
View data table
| State (total, approx.) | Rupees / month |
|---|---|
| Andhra Pradesh | ~3,500 |
| Haryana | ~3,200 |
| Delhi | ~2,500 |
| Goa | ~2,500 |
| Kerala | ~1,600 |
| Rajasthan | ~1,250 |
| Tamil Nadu | ~1,100 |
| Madhya Pradesh | ~600 |
| Central share (everywhere) | 200 |
What this data can and can't tell you
- The two-thirds erosion is a computation — here's the working. It deflates ₹200 by CPI-Industrial Workers, which rose roughly 3.5× between 2006 and 2025. A different price index (say, for rural labourers) would give a broadly similar but not identical figure. The endpoints are sourced; the year-by-year curve is interpolated for illustration.
- Two freeze dates, two erosions. The ₹200 old-age rate has been frozen since 2006; the ₹500/₹300 rates since 2012. The ~45% figure is the government's own and applies to the 2012-frozen amounts — the ₹200's loss is larger. Don't apply one figure to the other.
- State totals are approximate. They move with state budgets and are compiled from scheme notifications of different vintages; the one hard, uniform number is the ₹200 central share.
- Beneficiary counts are contested. ~3.09 crore are on the central-capped rolls (limited by 2011-census caps); auditors and researchers put the true number of pension recipients much higher once state-funded pensioners are counted.
- Real value is not the whole welfare story. A pension's adequacy also depends on what else a household receives; but a benefit losing two-thirds of its purchasing power while unchanged on paper is, by any measure, a cut administered by inaction.
The defensible claim: India's central old-age pension has not risen since 2006 and has lost most of its real value to inflation; the Centre's contribution is now so small that a pensioner's income is set mainly by their state — and the central government has said it does not plan to change the figure.
- National Social Assistance Programme, Ministry of Rural Development — pension amounts and revision history; beneficiary counts (2025).
- Labour Bureau (MoSPI) — CPI-Industrial Workers, used to deflate the pension to 2006 prices.
- Ministry-commissioned NSAP evaluation — ~45% real-value loss on 2012-frozen amounts (via summary); Parliament reply (Aug 2025) — "no proposal under consideration."
ImpactMojo Data (2026). "The pension that never got a raise." ImpactMojo Data Dives. Retrieved from https://impactmojo.in/DataDives/the-pension-that-never-got-a-raise.html
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