Pensions given to senior citizens, widows and persons with disabilities would no longer be linked with their Aadhaar, the Delhi Cabinet decided on Tuesday.
At a Cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, the Social Welfare Department’s proposal to delink Aadhaar and Aadhaar-linked bank accounts from the pensions was approved, a government statement said. The government said the pensions that had been stopped for lack of Aadhaar would be restarted. The pensioners who were not getting the enhanced amounts for lack of Aadhaar would now get the new rates.
“The Department will remit at old rates all pensions stopped due to lack of Aadhaar. Further, enhanced pension will be remitted with effect from April 2018, to all beneficiaries who are getting pension on old rates so that beneficiaries are not penalised for system-related reasons,” the statement said.
While the Department remitted the old age pension to 4.18 lakh beneficiaries and disability pension to 77,542 beneficiaries for April, the government said the enhanced amounts could not be given to 33,191 senior citizens and 9,799 PwD because of “systemic issues” with the banks or the Department.
‘Will not be denied’
The government statement said that Section 7 of the Aadhaar Act, 2016, said beneficiaries should not be denied for want of Aadhaar or failure of Aadhaar authentication. The Social Welfare Department had also received a circular from the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) saying that beneficiaries were not to be denied benefits, subsidy or service for not having Aadhaar, failure to authenticate or any other reason.
The government said that the UIDAI had suggested to the Department that the beneficiary should be given the benefit on the basis of an alternate ID till the time an Aadhaar number is assigned. Even if there was failure to authenticate due to poor connectivity or problems with the biometrics of the person, the subsidy, service or benefit should be provided, the UIDAI told the Department, the government said.
