Aasara Pension: Officials to weed out illegal beneficiaries

Adilabad: The government has identified irregularities in the distribution of old aged pensions and is taking steps to rectify them.

The old age pension should be given to only one person in a family. After receiving several complaints that many families have been taking more than one pension, a field-level investigation is underway to cut such double pensions in the district.

The rural development department here is now taking steps to remove support pension of beneficiaries whose family has been getting more than one, following the directions of State government. A special software has also been developed at the State level to identify those who are not eligible for pension Aasara. The software will be able to identify the ineligible persons based on the details of Aadhar card, electricity bill, IT returns of the Aasara beneficiaries.

It is also known that based on the information provided by the State office, the officials are conducting field-level investigations. In the district among the 67,190 beneficiaries receiving pensions, 23,036 belong to old age pensions, 29,121 are widows, 7,205 physically challenged, 41 toddy tappers, 19 weavers and HIV patients are receiving pensions.

As per the Aasara pension rules, the husbands and wives should not take two old age pensions in the same family (house). In a number of places, the government has noticed both the husband and the wife receiving old age pensions as a field-level enquiry revealed that 458 people were receiving two old-age pensions in a family. Due to this, the officials have been preparing to cut the extra pension being given to the families.

District Rural Development Officer (RDO) Rajeshwar Rathod said that in the district as many as 458 double old-aged pension cases have been identified among which 198 are ineligible beneficiaries, only 238 are eligible whereas 22 beneficiaries were dead.

Those with family income of less than Rs 1.50 lakh in rural areas and less than Rs 2 lakh in urban areas are eligible for Aasara support pension, he informed.

The RDO further said that people who own a large area of land, tractors and IT returns and those parents who have children continuing in government, outsourcing and contract jobs are ineligible to receive this pension.