Old Age Pension set for DBT avatar
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, August 05 2017: Old Age Pension given by Social Welfare Department would be disbursed through the bank accounts of beneficiaries under Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) from the month of September .

Social Welfare Department has been providing two types of pension to citizens above 60 years of age.

They are Indira Gandhi National Old Age Pension Scheme which is funded 100 per cent by the Central Government and Manipur Old Age Pension Scheme, entirely funded by the State Government .

The total number of beneficiaries of Indira Gandhi National Old Age Pension Scheme is 68,180 while 48,000 people have been enjoying Manipur Old Age Pension Scheme .

Beneficiaries of both the schemes get monthly pension of Rs 200 each .

Earlier, the pension amounts were distributed in cash through the District Social Welfare Officers concerned and there were also reports about swindling certain portions of the pension amounts .

Subsequently, the Government decided to adopt DBT for disbursing monthly pension, informed a source .

Under the Government's 100 days programme, all the beneficiaries have opened their bank accounts.

The Government has also taken up necessary measures to start disbursing pension through bank accounts from the week of September .

The department would be shortly uploading names and details of all the beneficiaries on its website.

Claims and objections would be invited within a specific period .

Gram Panchayats would verify the list of beneficiaries in the valley districts while the same work would be done by village authorities in the hill districts.

Then the authenticated lists would be for- warded to the DCs/DSWOs concerned .

Again the authenticated lists would be scrutinised by the National Social Assistance Programme (NSAP) committee of which local MLAs are also members before the final lists are published .

The Government has been working to verify the beneficiaries' list and rectify all the errors within the current month .

However, monthly pension for 17 months given under the two schemes are pending at present because the Government could not submit utilisation certificates for the money sanctioned earlier .

Nonetheless, the State Government has already written to the Central Government to release the backlog pension amount in the light of its new initiative to disburse monthly pension through bank accounts under DBT from the month of September.

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