Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru (SP)

Mangaluru, Oct 1: There are many families which are going through abject poverty with no family member working to support them. Many aged people totally depend on widow pension. But most of the social security pension beneficiaries from Karnataka have stopped getting pensions for the last some months after their ration cards were converted into APL cards.

There were allegations that lacs of people were misusing the government’s Sandhya Suraksha pension scheme, old age pension, widow pension etc. The main focus of these schemes was to help people with no income or meagre means to carry on with life. In order to stop misuse of its pension schemes, the government had recently issued some tough instructions. These have now been affecting even the pension payment to genuine beneficiaries. As per government rules, a person's annual income should be below Rs 38,000 in order to be eligible for social security pensions. Still, most in the state used to get it. After the government ordered the eradication of illegal BPL ration cards, cards got transformed from BPL to APL cards. This has effectively stopped the disbursement of pensions to many people.

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The APL card holders are now moving between the offices of the village accountants health department, banks, post offices etc. Still they are not getting proper information as per confession made by Nagamma from Kankanady.

Mangaluru tahsildar, Guruprasad, said that if those who are eligible for pension visit the office of village accountants and provide income certificate and supportive documents, they will be verified and if found eligible, pension will be sanctioned. He said that in order to sort out pension issues, revenue division level pension adalats are being organized during October and November in each of the taluk panchayats. He said that in addition to a sub-divisional officer, tahsildar and deputy tahsildar will be present, he said.

On the basis of family income, illegal BPL cards are being weeded out by turning them into APL cards. With this conversion, pension payment is cancelled. But some families are eligible for BPL cards but due to technical reasons they have been changed into APL. In some houses, only aged people reside and therefore could not arrange to convert the cards into BPL. Now, deprivation of pension has come as a rude shock to families who almost entirely depend on this assured income.