The Rajasthan government’s Social Justice and Empowerment Department has chalked out a plan for re-checking of cases in which the social security pensions were stopped on the purported ground of death of beneficiaries.
Civil rights groups, which carried out physical verification of pension accounts in some revenue villages in Rajsamand district recently, have demanded reopening of about 7.5 lakh pension accounts closed earlier and re-verification of about 10 lakh pensioners in the State. The State government pays Rs.500 per month as old age pension.
Social Justice and Empowerment Departmen’s Director Ravi Jain said here on Wednesday that special camps would be organised at panchayat samiti headquarters in all districts from July 25 to August 5 to address the grievances related to social security pensions.
Mr. Jain said the complete lists of pensioners from panchayats and villages along with the list of names cancelled would be made available at the camps. Any beneficiary having objections can lodge a complaint and get his or her eligibility validated in the camps.
Directive to collectors
The collectors of all the 33 districts have been asked to mainly focus on the names of beneficiaries which were deleted on account of their purported death or because of duplicate entries. The names omitted because of unknown reasons will also be covered in the 12-day-long exercise.
Mr. Jain said the State government would restart pensions of beneficiaries erroneously removed from records with retrospective effect. Besides, the collectors will fix accountability of the officials concerned for negligence in the pension scheme's implementation and take disciplinary action against them in five days.
Chief Secretary O.P. Meena also asked the collectors at a video conferencing meeting here on Wednesday to give wide publicity to the camps and utilise them for exhibiting the State government’s initiatives for service delivery, in addition to rectification of pension records.
The Suchana Ka Adhikar Abhiyan had written to the State Social Justice Secretary with the demand for restoration of pensions with arrears and immediate reopening of the verification process of all the 7.5 lakh people whose pensions had been cancelled.
Nikhil Dey of Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan said the re-verification should be a “transparent, consultative and robust” process that should have accountability mechanisms built into the structure. He also underlined the significance of the accountability law in the context of the pension issue.
