Bhubaneswar: Amid the controversy over delay in the disbursement of old age pensions in Odisha, BJD has criticized the ruling BJP of reneging on its promise of hiking the beneficiary amount.
“The BJP had promised in its election manifesto that it would increase the old age pension from ₹1,000 to ₹3,500. However, after coming to power, the BJP has forgotten this promise. Far from increasing the pension of the beneficiaries, they are not even being provided the pension regularly,” BJD party spokesperson Dr Lenin Mohanty said.
Mohanty said the beneficiaries are facing immense difficulties because of an “inordinate delay in the disbursement of old age pensions” from March this year till September. He also accused the state government of not taking any steps to resolve the issue.
The monetary benefit is disbursed under the Indira Gandhi National Old Age Pension Scheme, a component of the centrally-supported National Social Assistance Programme (NSAP). Odisha has nearly 20 lakh beneficiaries under NSAP.
Earlier, Social Security and Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities minister, Nityananda Gondm, said the delay was caused by system upgrades and integration issues. Officials were integrating the system with the Integrated Financial Management System (IFMS) to enable real-time bank transfers, he said.
The minister further said that the disbursement of old age pensions had returned to normal after rectification of the technical problems.
Rubbishing the claim, Mohanty said, “Reports are still coming from different parts of the state that old age pensions are not being received on time. Most of the old age pension beneficiaries use the pension to purchase medicines and essential daily necessities, and any delay in receiving the pension causes them considerable hardship”.
The BJD spokesperson said that more than 7 lakh applications are pending with the state government from people seeking to be included in the old age pension beneficiary list. “However, they are not being added to the list. It is pertinent to mention that removing deceased persons from the old age pension beneficiary list and adding newly eligible persons is a regular process, which the BJP government is deliberately not implementing,” he added.