: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has alleged a pension scam to the tune of Rs. 244 crore in the three BJP-led Municipal Corporations. The allegation came after an order issued by the Central Information Commission (CIC) revealed that the three civic bodies have no records of the money spent on pension schemes.
The CIC order has named senior BJP leader Vijender Gupta’s wife and Rohini councillor Shobha Vijender “for having approved an illegal and ineligible pension application”. Mrs. Vijender has been asked to explain the same.
AAP has also demanded that both Mr. Gupta and his wife resign. “In this order, shocking details about massive irregularities in pension schemes run by the North Delhi Municipal Corporation have come to light,” said Dilip Pandey, head of AAP’s Delhi unit.
Giving details of the CIC order, AAP leaders at a press conference on Saturday said that an applicant at CIC, who was entitled to Rs. 31,540 per month from a bank as pension, had approached the CIC for non-payment of the sum to his differently-abled wife allegedly because of funds not being provided by the Delhi government to the Municipal Corporations.
“But as per the rules, any disability pension from any of the MCDs is given only when the total family income of the applicant (husband and wife) does not exceed Rs. 5,000 per month. But the Corporation officials and councillor Shobha Vijender started disbursing the pension without proper verification of the form,” claimed Mr. Pandey.
The Commission has also asked the Delhi government to supervise the Corporation’s pension work.
