CM Sukhu raises Home Guard welfare aid up to Rs 25,000
Synopsis
Key Takeaways
When a Home Guard jawan is rushed to hospital in the middle of the night, his family should not have to worry about the bill. Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu has raised that assurance in concrete rupee terms, announcing a significant hike in financial assistance for Home Guards under the state's Rashtrapati Medhavi Sahayata Yojana on Thursday, 29 October 2026.
Posting in Hindi on X, CM Sukhu wrote: 'हमारे होमगार्ड जवान पूर्ण समर्पण और जिम्मेदारी के साथ समाज की सेवा में अहम भूमिका निभाते हैं।' ('Our Home Guard jawans play a vital role in serving society with complete dedication and responsibility.') He added that caring for them and their families is the government's obligation.What the revised scheme now offers Home Guards
Under the revised structure, the financial aid available to a Home Guard jawan facing a sudden serious crisis, illness, or injury has been more than doubled — from Rs 10,000 to Rs 25,000. In the event of a death, the family will now receive Rs 1 lakh. The scheme, the Rashtrapati Medhavi Sahayata Yojana, is specifically designed to provide economic relief for treatment costs and other urgent expenses during times of hardship.
The CM framed the revision as a direct state responsibility: to ensure that Home Guard personnel and their dependents receive 'economic support and financial relief for necessary expenses like treatment in difficult times.'
Home Guards in Himachal: who they are and what they do
Home Guards are a state-level auxiliary volunteer force that supplements regular police in maintaining law and order, managing disaster response, and supporting civil administration during elections and emergencies. Across Indian states, they occupy a demanding but often underpaid role at the frontier of public safety — deployed at short notice, frequently in difficult terrain, yet outside the full protective ambit of permanent police cadres.
Periodic upward revision of welfare benefits for such auxiliary forces is an acknowledged practice across Indian states, but the quantum of revision matters. A jump from Rs 10,000 to Rs 25,000 — a 150 per cent increase — and the introduction of a Rs 1 lakh death benefit signals a deliberate push, not a routine cost-of-living adjustment.
For a Congress government in Himachal Pradesh that has positioned welfare delivery as a core political identity, extending that promise to auxiliary security personnel broadens the constituency of state care — one jawan, and one family, at a time.