Special Allowance for Child Care for Women with Disabilities

Women central government employees with disabilities get Rs. 3,750 a month as a special child-care allowance, from a child's birth until it turns two.

Updated 17 July 2026 · Reviewed by Salary-Calculator.in

The Special Allowance for Child Care for Women with Disabilities is a monthly allowance of Rs. 3,750 paid to a woman central government employee who has a disability, to help her meet the cost of caring for a young child, from the birth of the child until it is two years old. It is granted under the Department of Personnel and Training Office Memorandum No. A-27012/03/2017-Estt.(AL) dated 16 August 2017, with effect from 1 July 2017.

This article explains the allowance in full: what it is and who it supports, the current rate of Rs. 3,750 and the 7th Central Pay Commission decision to double it rather than raise it by half, the eligibility and the 40 per cent disability threshold, the conditions on the age of the child and the number of children, the escalation with dearness allowance, the important distinction from the children education allowance , and the tax position.

The allowance is a small but pointed piece of the government’s framework of support for employees with disabilities. It recognises a specific and demanding situation, a woman who is herself disabled caring for a child under two, and gives her a fixed monthly sum towards the extra help that situation requires. It is one of several benefits, discussed below, through which the service rules give employees with disabilities more than the standard entitlement.

What the allowance is, and who it supports

The allowance answers a specific need. A woman employee who has a disability, and who has a very young child, faces a heavier burden in the day-to-day care of that child than an employee without a disability, and may need to employ help. The allowance is a fixed monthly contribution towards the cost of that care, paid for the period when a child needs the most attention, its first two years.

It is deliberately narrow. It is confined to women employees, and among them to those with a disability, and it is paid only while the child is under two. It is not a general child-care allowance for all women employees, and it is not a disability allowance in the general sense; it is the intersection of the two, aimed at the woman employee with a disability during her child’s infancy. The allowance is paid in addition to the woman’s pay and to any other entitlement such as child care leave , not in place of them.

The rate, and why the 7th CPC doubled it

The base rate fixed by the 7th Central Pay Commission was Rs. 3,000 a month, with effect from 1 July 2017. This was a doubling of the earlier allowance of Rs. 1,500 a month.

The doubling was a deliberate choice and the pay commission explained it. Before the revision the allowance stood at Rs. 1,500 a month. For most allowances that are only partly indexed to dearness allowance, the 7th Central Pay Commission applied a factor of 1.5 when it revised them, which on Rs. 1,500 would have given Rs. 2,250. For this allowance it departed from that factor. Recognising the additional responsibility that a woman with a disability shoulders in raising a child, the commission recommended a factor of 2 instead, taking the allowance to Rs. 3,000 rather than Rs. 2,250. The larger multiple, and the extra Rs. 750 a month it produced, was the commission’s way of giving extra weight to the needs of women employees with disabilities, over and above the routine revision the other allowances received. It is one of the few instances where the commission consciously chose a higher multiplier than its own norm, which is why the allowance is often cited as an example of the 7th Central Pay Commission’s targeted support for employees with disabilities.

The escalation, and the current Rs. 3,750

The allowance does not stay frozen at its base figure. The order provides that it rises automatically by 25 per cent each time the dearness allowance on the revised pay structure goes up by 50 percentage points, the same stepped escalation carried by several other 7th Central Pay Commission allowances.

The first step has already been taken. When dearness allowance crossed 50 per cent, with effect from 1 January 2024, the allowance rose by 25 per cent from Rs. 3,000 to Rs. 3,750 a month, and the Department of Personnel and Training has confirmed Rs. 3,750 as the current figure. The next 25 per cent rise will come only when dearness allowance reaches 100 per cent. Between those thresholds the allowance holds at Rs. 3,750, so the figure an eligible woman draws today is Rs. 3,750 a month.

Eligibility and the 40 per cent disability threshold

Three conditions define who may draw the allowance.

First, the employee must be a woman. The allowance is not available to a male employee, because it is framed as support for a woman employee with a disability in caring for her child.

Second, the woman must have a disability of at least 40 per cent. The threshold and the meaning of disability are those in the Ministry of Welfare notification No. 16-18/97-NI.I dated 1 June 2001, as amended from time to time, which is the benchmark used across the service rules for disability benefits, and which is read today alongside the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 . A woman with a disability assessed below 40 per cent does not qualify.

Third, there must be a child under two. The allowance is tied to the presence of a young child, so it begins at the child’s birth and ends when the child turns two.

Where all three hold, the woman draws the allowance; the failure of any one, being male, a disability below the threshold, or a child of two or more, takes the case outside it.

The age and the two-children conditions

Two numerical conditions shape how long and how widely the allowance is paid.

The allowance is payable from the time of the child’s birth until the child is two years old. It is an infancy allowance, covering the first two years when the child needs the most care, and it stops on the child’s second birthday. For a woman with a disability who has a child, that means up to two years of the allowance for that child.

It is payable for a maximum of the two eldest surviving children. This mirrors the two-child limit used elsewhere in the allowance rules, such as the children education allowance, and it means a woman with more than two children draws the allowance only in respect of the two eldest surviving ones. Where two children under two overlap in time, the allowance is drawn for each within the limit, so a woman with a disability with two infants can draw the allowance for both.

How it differs from the Children Education Allowance

The two allowances are easy to confuse, because both concern a government employee’s children, but they are quite different and a woman with a disability may draw both.

This special allowance is a child-care allowance. It goes to a woman employee who herself has a disability, for a child aged under two, and it does not depend on the child being in school or on the child having any disability. It meets the cost of caring for an infant.
The children education allowance is a reimbursement of school education expenses. It is available to all employees for children in school, up to the two-child limit, and it is paid at double the normal rate where the child has a disability. It meets the cost of schooling, not infant care.

So the disability that matters is different in each: for this special allowance it is the mother’s disability, while for the double-rate children education allowance it is the child’s disability. A woman employee with a disability whose child is in school and is also disabled could, in principle, draw this special allowance while the child is under two and the double-rate children education allowance once the child is in school, because the two answer different costs at different stages.

The wider framework of disability benefits

This allowance is one of several ways the service rules give an employee with a disability more than the standard entitlement, and it helps to see it in that context.

An employee with a disability of the qualifying kind draws the transport allowance at double the normal rate, in recognition of the greater difficulty and cost of commuting. The double rate applies to employees such as those who are blind or orthopaedically handicapped, subject to a certificate and a minimum amount, so that a disabled employee’s commuting allowance is twice that of a colleague at the same pay level and city. The children education allowance, as noted, is doubled where the child has a disability, and its annual ceiling for such a child is set higher than the normal figure. Child care leave and maternity leave support employees, including women employees, in caring for children, and the leave rules give some additional latitude to employees with disabilities. The reservation in recruitment and promotion for persons with disabilities, and the reasonable-accommodation duties, sit above all of these under the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 .

This special allowance sits within that framework as the measure aimed specifically at the woman employee with a disability during her child’s first two years, and it is the only one of these benefits that turns on the intersection of the employee being both a woman and disabled with a child in infancy.

The allowance alongside maternity and child care leave

The allowance sits alongside, and is independent of, the leave a woman employee may take for her child. A woman government servant is entitled to 180 days of maternity leave for the birth of a child under the leave rules, and to child care leave to look after a child, and these are periods of leave on leave salary. The special allowance is not leave and does not turn on leave: it is a monthly allowance that a woman employee with a disability draws for the child’s first two years whether she is on duty or on maternity or child care leave during that period.

So the two work together. In the months immediately after the birth the woman may be on maternity leave and drawing leave salary, and she draws the special allowance in those months as well, because the allowance follows the existence of a child under two, not her attendance. When she returns to duty and continues to have a child under two, the allowance continues. It stops only when the child turns two, regardless of what leave she has or has not taken in the interval. Reading the allowance and the leave together gives the full picture of the support available to a woman employee with a disability around the birth of a child: leave salary during the leave, and this allowance across the child’s infancy.

The allowance is claimed through the woman employee’s office on the strength of her disability certificate and the child’s date of birth, and it is drawn month by month with her pay for the qualifying period. The disability certificate from the competent medical authority establishes that she has a disability of at least 40 per cent, and the child’s birth certificate fixes the start date and the second-birthday end date of the allowance; where the disability certificate is issued for a limited period, its renewal governs the continuation of the allowance. Because it is a fixed monthly sum, no bills for the child’s care are submitted; the allowance is the settlement of that cost, and it does not require the woman to account for how it is spent.

On tax, the position should be stated with care. The allowance is a welfare payment to meet the cost of caring for a child in the specific circumstances of a woman employee with a disability, rather than a reward for service. No provision of the Income-tax Act specifically names it, so its treatment is not settled by a clear exemption, and a woman drawing it should confirm the position for her own case with the drawing and disbursing officer and a tax adviser, as the income tax for government employees article discusses in general terms.

The 8th CPC outlook

The 7th Central Pay Commission doubled this allowance and gave it a dearness-allowance-linked escalation, so it has already risen once, to Rs. 3,750, and is better protected than a frozen fixed allowance. Whether the 8th Central Pay Commission raises the base figure again, widens the eligibility, or extends the age or the number of children is not known, and no figure for the allowance after the 8th CPC can be stated as fact until that commission reports and its recommendations are accepted. Until then the position is Rs. 3,750 a month, for a woman employee with a disability of at least 40 per cent, from a child’s birth until it is two, for up to two eldest surviving children.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What is the Special Allowance for Child Care for Women with Disabilities?

It is a monthly allowance paid to a woman central government employee who has a disability, to help meet the cost of caring for a young child. It is paid from the birth of the child until the child is two years old, for up to the two eldest surviving children. The rate was Rs. 3,000 a month from 1 July 2017 and, after the dearness-allowance-linked increase, is Rs. 3,750 a month.

How much is the child care allowance for women with disabilities now?

The base rate fixed by the 7th Central Pay Commission was Rs. 3,000 a month with effect from 1 July 2017. The allowance rises by 25 per cent each time dearness allowance rises by 50 percentage points, and because dearness allowance crossed 50 per cent in January 2024 it rose to Rs. 3,750 a month, which the Department of Personnel and Training has confirmed as the current figure.

Who is eligible for this allowance?

A woman employee of the central government who has a disability of at least 40 per cent, as defined in the Ministry of Welfare notification of 1 June 2001 as amended. The allowance is specific to women employees with a disability; it is not paid to a woman employee without a disability, nor to a male employee. It supports the woman with a disability in caring for her young child.

For how long and for how many children is it paid?

It is paid from the time of the child’s birth until the child is two years old, so for up to two years for each qualifying child, and it is payable for a maximum of the two eldest surviving children. A woman with a disability who has a child under two draws Rs. 3,750 a month for that child during that period, and can draw it for a second child within the two-children limit.

Is this the same as the Children Education Allowance?

No. This special allowance is a child-care allowance for a woman employee with a disability, for a child up to two years old, and does not depend on schooling. The Children Education Allowance is a separate reimbursement of school expenses, available to all employees for children in school, and it is paid at double the normal rate where the child themselves has a disability. The two are distinct and a woman employee with a disability can draw both where the conditions of each are met.

Why did the 7th CPC double this allowance rather than raise it by 1.5?

The 7th Central Pay Commission recognised the additional responsibility a woman with a disability carries in raising a young child, and instead of the factor of 1.5 it used for most semi-indexed allowances, it applied a factor of 2, doubling the allowance from Rs. 1,500 to Rs. 3,000 a month. This was a deliberate departure to give extra support to women employees with disabilities.

Is the allowance taxable?

The position should be confirmed for an individual case, but as a special allowance granted to meet the cost of child care in the specific circumstances of a woman employee with a disability, it is a welfare payment rather than a reward. No provision of the Income-tax Act specifically names it, so an employee should confirm the treatment with the drawing and disbursing officer and a tax adviser.

External references

References

Department of Personnel and Training, Office Memorandum No. A-27012/03/2017-Estt.(AL) dated 16 August 2017, “Special Allowance for Child Care for Women with Disabilities, recommendations of the Seventh Central Pay Commission” (Rs. 3,000 a month from the child’s birth until the child is two years old, for a maximum of the two eldest surviving children, for women with a disability of at least 40 per cent; to rise 25 per cent each time dearness allowance rises by 50 per cent; effective 1 July 2017).
Report of the Seventh Central Pay Commission, November 2015, chapter on allowances (recommendation to raise the allowance by a factor of 2 to Rs. 3,000 a month, in recognition of the responsibility of women with disabilities in raising children).
Ministry of Welfare Notification No. 16-18/97-NI.I dated 1 June 2001, as amended (definition of disability and the 40 per cent threshold used for the allowance).
Ministry of Finance, Department of Expenditure, Office Memorandum enhancing dearness allowance to 50 per cent of basic pay with effect from 1 January 2024 (the trigger for the 25 per cent rise of the allowance to Rs. 3,750).
The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 (the statutory framework for the rights and benefits of persons with disabilities, read with the service-rule benefits for employees with disabilities).