The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : State in fix on old age pension

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Friday, Nov 16, 2007
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

State in fix on old age pension

Centre decides to relax norms for those eligible from BPL families

— PHOTO: P.V. SIVAKUMAR

Registering protest: Telugu Desam members of the Legislative Council staging a walkout in Hyderabad on Thursday over the alleged diversion of pension under Indiramma programme.

HYDERABAD: The State Government appears to be in a fix in the wake of the Centre’s decision to relax norms for giving away old age pensions.

Doing away with the clause ‘destitute’, the Centre had announced recently that all the eligible poor above 65 years from below poverty line families would be given pension of Rs. 400 of which the Centre would contribute Rs. 200 and the balance by respective State Governments. This would, in turn, result in addition of over 4.6 lakh beneficiaries who were hitherto ineligible as they did not fall under the ‘destitute’ category, Rural Development Minister G. Chinna Reddy said on Thursday.

New guidelines

Replying to queries during Question Hour in the Legislative Council, the Minister said the new guidelines would come into effect from November 19, but it would take some time for the State to implement them.

The Government was presently disbursing pensions to 47 lakh people and the number was likely to go up by another 15 lakh once the third phase of Indiramma was completed.

Raising the issue, P. Raghunatha Reddy, (TDP) and others alleged that large scale irregularities were taking place in the implementation of Indiramma housing scheme.

They staged a walk out as their demand for constituting a House committee to study the implementation of the scheme for ascertaining facts was turned down.

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