ADIP scheme: free wheelchairs and hearing aids

If you hold a disability certificate of at least 40 percent and your monthly income is ₹22,500 or less, the ADIP scheme pays the full cost of a wheelchair, hearing aid or calliper priced up to ₹15,000. You pay nothing for it. Earn between ₹22,501 and ₹30,000 a month and the government pays half. Above ₹30,000 you are not eligible. Costlier devices such as artificial limbs and motorised wheelchairs carry their own subsidy ceilings, set out below.

1. Check the two gates. You need a disability certificate showing at least 40 percent disability, and monthly income from all sources not above ₹30,000. For a dependant, it is the parent or guardian income that counts.
2. Get your UDID number. The scheme asks for a UDID card, or the UDID enrolment number along with the disability certificate. If you do not have one, start with how to apply for a UDID disability certificate. Aadhaar is compulsory too.
3. Arrange one income proof. Any one of these works: an income certificate from the revenue authorities, a BPL card, an MGNREGA card, a disability pension card, or a certificate from your MP, MLA, Councillor or Gram Pradhan. If you have none, self certification or a notarised affidavit is accepted.
4. Register on ARJUN, the government portal for ADIP. Use the ARJUN beneficiary registration page, or walk in to the nearest ALIMCO centre, National Institute, Composite Regional Centre or District Disability Rehabilitation Centre. Write down the registration number and the date. That date starts your clock.
5. Attend the assessment camp. A rehabilitation professional registered with the Rehabilitation Council of India measures you and prescribes the correct device.
6. Count the days. The implementing agency must give you the device within six months from the date you registered on ARJUN or on the mobile app.
7. Collect it at the distribution camp. Claim your travel money on the spot: rail or bus fare up to ₹250 for you and another ₹250 for one escort.
8. Keep everything. The prescription, the registration number, and any paper you signed.

These ceilings come from the ADIP guidelines applicable with effect from 26 September 2024. Two limits sit in the scheme at the same time: the ceiling for the device above, and the income slab below. Before you agree to pay anything, make the implementing agency show you both figures in writing.

The cochlear implant amount is not cash handed to you. It covers the implant, the surgery, therapy, mapping, travel and the pre implant assessment. The surgery bill at an empanelled hospital is capped at ₹75,000, including a ₹25,000 mentor fee. Ali Yavar Jung National Institute of Speech and Hearing Disabilities, Mumbai, is the nodal agency.

A worked example. Meena is 52, has 60 percent locomotor disability, and her household earns ₹24,000 a month. Her wheelchair costs ₹9,000. Her income falls in the second slab, so ADIP pays ₹4,500 and she pays ₹4,500. She also claims ₹250 travel for herself and ₹250 for the son who brings her. Had the household earned ₹18,000, the government would have paid the whole ₹9,000.

A second example, on the ceiling. Ramesh needs a high end prosthesis after a below knee amputation. The subsidy is capped at ₹30,000. If the limb quoted to him costs ₹45,000, the shortfall of ₹15,000 must come from CSR funds, MPLAD funds, a state scheme, panchayat or municipal funds, or from Ramesh himself. The guidelines say so in as many words.

• Surgery before fitting. ₹1,500 for speech and hearing impairment, ₹3,000 for visual impairment, ₹15,000 for orthopaedic impairment.
• Travel. Rail or bus fare up to ₹250 each for you and one escort, whatever the number of visits.
• Boarding and lodging. ₹100 a day, only if your income is ₹22,500 or less. Up to 15 days for corrective surgery, 5 days for fitment of a prosthesis or orthosis, 5 days for an ear mould.
• Maintenance. The implementing agency has to maintain the device free of cost.

The Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, ALIMCO, the National Institutes, the Composite Regional Centres and the District Disability Rehabilitation Centres are all public authorities under the RTI Act, 2005, and the scheme forces them to create a paper trail.

Three obligations make your application hard to dodge. Before a camp, the agency must inform the District Collector, the BDO, local public representatives, the State Government and the Department of the date and location. After the camp, it must upload the beneficiary list to the ARJUN portal within two days of distribution and display that list on its own website. Photographs of beneficiaries with names and addresses must be kept on record.

So the file exists. Ask for it under section 6(1), addressed to the Central Public Information Officer, Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, New Delhi. Send the same application to the implementing agency if it is a government body.

1. The date and location of the ADIP assessment camp held at [place] in [month, year],
   and the name of the implementing agency that conducted it.
2. A copy of the beneficiary list of that camp as uploaded on the ARJUN portal,
   showing serial number, beneficiary name and the device allotted.
3. The device allotted against my ADIP registration number [number] dated [date],
   and the date on which my name was uploaded to the ARJUN portal.
4. The date on which the said device is shown as distributed, and the name of the
   person recorded as having received it.
5. If the device has not been distributed, the reason for the delay beyond the six
   month period fixed in clause 10.0 of the ADIP guidelines.

The Public Information Officer has 30 days to reply under section 7(1). If the wrong office receives it, section 6(3) makes them transfer it within 5 days. No reply, or a useless one, and you file a first appeal within 30 days under section 19(1). The AI RTI Drafter puts this into the correct format, the Timeline Tracker gives you the exact appeal date, and the PIO Reply Checker tells you whether a reply is evasive.

File early. Records are kept only 2 years in physical form and 5 years in digital form, and beneficiary records older than 5 years may be destroyed. File within a year of the camp and the file will almost certainly be intact.

You need the UDID card, or at least the UDID enrolment number along with your disability certificate of 40 percent or more. An Aadhaar number or enrolment ID is also required. For children in special schools under the ADIP-SSA route, a joint certificate signed by the head of the school, the local SSA authority and a registered rehabilitation professional can be used instead.

The scheme keeps this door open. A BPL card, an MGNREGA card, a disability pension card, or a written certificate from your MP, MLA, Councillor or Gram Pradhan is enough. If you have none, self certification or a notarised affidavit through the implementing agency is accepted. Do not pay an agent for a certificate you do not need.

Six months from the date you register on the ARJUN portal or the ADIP mobile app. That period is written into clause 10.0 of the guidelines for both routes. If six months pass with nothing in your hands, stop visiting the office. Take your registration number and file the RTI application set out above.

Normally no. A motorised tricycle or motorised wheelchair needs 80 percent disability or more and age 16 and above, once in five years. There is one relaxation: for students covered under ADIP-SSA the 80 percent condition is relaxed to 40 percent, all other conditions unchanged. A person aged 16 or above with severe disability who has cognitive impairment is not eligible for either, because of the accident risk.

Not for the same purpose. The rule is no assistance in the last 3 years from any source for the same purpose. For children below 18 the gap is one year for customised items such as an orthosis, a prosthesis or learning material, because children outgrow them. Motorised tricycles, motorised wheelchairs and smart phones stay at once in five years. A different device for a different need is allowed.

The guidelines in force are the revision applicable with effect from 26 September 2024, still published by the Department as the current scheme document, and the ARJUN registration page was live when this page was checked on 6 August 2026. Said honestly: that document covers the Fifteenth Finance Commission period from 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2026, and clause 14 bars committed liability beyond that cycle. Confirm with your nearest Composite Regional Centre before travelling far.

• Check the percentage on your disability certificate. Below 40 percent, try the disability pension route instead.
• Register on ARJUN and photograph the registration number and date.
• Set a reminder six months ahead. If nothing has arrived, file the RTI. The RTI Playbook covers the appeal.

• ADIP Scheme guidelines applicable w.e.f. 26 September 2024, O.M. No. 4-2(12)/2020-DD-I: full guidelines PDF
• ADIP scheme page, Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities
• ARJUN portal, where beneficiaries register and agencies upload distribution data
• ARJUN beneficiary registration form