Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru (SP)

Bengaluru, Sep 12: A mega scandal involving disbursement of old age pension has come to light. The government has already kept in abeyance about 1.20 lac accounts pending detailed investigation.

The cases involve continuing to draw pension in the name of deceased people, the same person drawing pension at different places by furnishing multiple addresses, etc. The government has instructed the officials to find the persons who have caused huge loss to the exchequer and to take steps to recover the loss from them.

It is clear that a mafia of agents is involved right from the release of money to getting the money disbursed through post office.

The directorate of social security and pensions working under the revenue department has introduced a new system as per which linking all the accounts to Aadhar cards has been made mandatory. Therefore, there is no scope for irregularities now. Till now the government used to release the total amount of social security pensions to the district treasury. The agents got involved with irregularities by not providing proper information to the department, it is said.

Henceforth, there is no need to apply for the old age pension. As the government has details of RTC, ration card and Aadhar card links, it knows the income levels of people and also those who are eligible to draw this pension. The village accountants visit the houses of eligible people, get applications filled, and help people to open bank accounts. Pension is sanctioned as the deputy tahsildar level. On an experimental basis, Srirangapatna taluk has been chosen for this system, and the system will gradually be extended to other areas.

There are 66.28 beneficiaries under different pension schemes like old age, widow, handicapped, Sandhya Suraksha etc. Every month they get Rs 7450 crore by way of pension out of the central government bears Rs 430 crore.

G Prabhu, director of social security and pensions’ directorate, says that bogus cases came to light as the system of disbursement through taluk and district treasuries was stopped and arrangement for direct credit to bank accounts was made. Revenue minister R Ashok, said that no new applications under the old age pension need to be submitted as the new system has been introduced.