Widows staged a protest at the Collectorate here on Monday, demanding monthly pension under the State government’s Widow Pension Scheme.
A group of widows from Mudaliyar Pudukulam, Kadaladi and other places, staged a sit-in dharna demanding pension and they gave up the stir only after officials directly received the petitions from them.
Kaliammal (60), one of the petitioners, said she had made several representations to the local revenue officials and the Collector but could not get the pension. Without any source of income after her husband’s death, she had been struggling to make both ends meet.
She had two daughters and one of them was yet to be married, she said.
Most of the other women said they were treated as untouchables in their own homes and the pension would be of great help to them.
They had to be at the mercy of others for buying medicines and meeting other expenses, they said and urged Collector S. Natarajan to consider their cases sympathetically and order pension.
