YSR Congress president Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy called upon the pension committees to not become a part of the conspiracy allegedly hatched by the State government to weed out social sector pensions for which various excuses are being cited.
In an open letter on Tuesday, Mr. Reddy stated that the Chief Minister had during the election campaigning promised to increase the Rs. 200 pensions to Rs. 1,000 and Rs. 500 ones to Rs. 1,500 but has of late started attempts to prune them on different pretexts. It seemed to be one of the austerity measures that the government was apparently forced to take in view of the huge fiscal deficit that bifurcation has thrown at the doorsteps of his government.
The government has allocated just Rs 1,300 crore for pensions whereas the requirement of nearly 43.12 lakh pensions stood at Rs. 3,600 crore. The Kiran Kumar Reddy government had reduced the number of social sector pensions by seven lakh in the unified State and the current dispensation was continuing to do that to the detriment of those who need pensions for their subsistence.
