New Delhi: Close to 42 lakh pensioners in Andhra Pradesh received their pensions at their houses from the village and ward volunteers under the state government’s ‘Intivadhakey Pension’ programme, according to a report in The Hindu.
The massive doorstep pension disbursement initiative was one of the promises in the YSRCP’s election manifesto and was rolled out on Saturday.
“The old, sick and physically challenged are saved from the ordeal of going to the pension disbursement offices every month. The village volunteers appointed by the government will visit each beneficiary’s house from now on the 1st of every month and hand over the pension after bio-metric verification,’’ said panchayati raj minister Peddireddi Ramchandra Reddy.
In a tweet, Andhra Pradesh chief minister Jagan Mohan Reddy said that the government had delivered pensions to 6.11 lakh new beneficiaries and any other person left out could visit the nearest Secretariat and apply for the benefit.
The programme was launched by the Jagan Reddy-led government so that the elderly, the sick and people with disabilities wouldn’t have to go to the disbursement centres to collect their pensions and beneficiaries would receive their money at home. Under the scheme, village volunteers will use mobile phones connected to bio-metric devices and beneficiary data to verify fingerprints and deliver the cash at the house of each beneficiary.
The state government has also reduced the cut-off age for old age pensioners (OAP) from 65 to 60 years.
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Officials said that with the increase in the number of pensioners, the list of beneficiaries has gone up to 54.64 lakh this year.
“Earlier, we used to wait for hours in offices to get our pension. We even had to take a day off from work to get the pension,” a beneficiary told NDTV. “We are extremely happy with this initiative. Volunteers come to us early in the morning to deliver pensions.”
Andhra’s principal secretary of rural development, Gopal Krishna Dwivedi, said, “The village and ward volunteers go to people’s homes and get a physical biometric verification confirming identity of the beneficiary on their phones. There is a provision to hand over cash or transfer the money to the beneficiaries’ bank account.”
Apart from volunteers, senior government officials also went to villages to ensure the smooth delivery of pensions to beneficiaries.
According to an official statement, after Jagan Reddy took over as chief minister, the state government allocated over Rs 15,675 crores for pensions as opposed to Rs 1,320 crore by the previous government.
However, some critics of the scheme have said the decision to introduce volunteers to hand over pensions leaves room for corruption. But the state government has contended that the process will be closely monitored.
The elderly, widows, single women, weavers and fishermen get Rs 2,250 every month as pension in Andhra Pradesh while persons with disabilities are entitled to Rs 3,000 per month.