Delhi Old-Age Pension Check: 4.4 Lakh Seniors Face Home Verification
Image: Business Standard (file)
About 4.4 lakh senior citizens who draw Delhi’s old-age pension will get a knock on the door over the next three months. The Delhi government has started a house-to-house verification in which Common Service Centre (CSC) teams scan each pensioner’s fingerprints or iris, take a live photograph and update the record, a senior official told Business Standard on 24 October. The official said the drive is meant to remove people who have died or who also receive other government assistance, and expects 20 to 25 per cent of beneficiaries to be dropped.
Pensioners Need to Be Home for the Scan
The pension is Rs 2,000 a month for people aged 60 to 69 and Rs 2,500 for those 70 and above. Verification is done at the beneficiary’s residence with fingerprint and iris scanners, with help from the CSC network of about 6,000 centres in the city. When the Cabinet approved annual checks in October 2025, it set a fee of Rs 100 per beneficiary for home visits and said a helpline and call centre would handle queries, The Tribune reported.
A Year From Approval to Start
Chief Minister Rekha Gupta’s Cabinet cleared the verification in October 2025, saying it would begin “shortly”, with an estimated cost of Rs 5.57 crore a year for about six lakh beneficiaries of welfare schemes. In June 2026, officials told PTI the drive would start within a month and end in about five. It is starting only now: the official said it was held up because permission for Aadhaar authentication through a third party had not been granted. In 2025, about 80,000 pension applications were pending with the social welfare department, Outlook Money reported, citing The Times of India.
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Appeals and Waiting List Not Explained
The official said the checks would “create 20-25 per cent vacancies”, but the government has not said whether those places will go to pending applicants. It has also not said what happens to elderly people whose fingerprints or iris fail to match, or how a dropped pensioner can appeal. The details so far come from an official who was not named; Business Standard’s report did not cite any public notice from the social welfare department. Earlier Delhi stories: 48 villages get urban status and festive food safety raids.
Source: Based on reporting by Business Standard, ThePrint/PTI, The Tribune and Outlook Money.
Image: Business Standard (file).
