THIRUVANANTHAPURAM:The state government will validate the list of social security pension beneficiaries with the help of Mahila Pradhan Agents. This will be the second major exercise by the government to weed out ineligible persons. The validation will begin after October 10, when the ongoing rectification of anomalies will end.
In July, the government had withheld the pension of about 80,000 beneficiaries who were found ineligible in a scrutiny done with the help of databases maintained by other government departments.As many as 64,473 people, who owned luxury vehicles, were identified with the help of the data with the Motor Vehicles Department.
Some others were widow pensioners who continued to receive the amount after remarriage and IT payees. The names of 14,000 persons who were found dead were also removed.However, the pruning exercise was not devoid of mistakes. Scores of living persons who were marked dead staged protests in front of local self-government.
The Finance Minister’s Office said that complaints of over 4,000 persons against exclusion were found genuine and re-inducted. This included about 700 persons who were wrongly marked as dead. The FMO said that the scrutiny was successful since only ten per cent of the people who dropped out lodged complaints.The last date for submitting complaints to the local self- governments is September 30. The new list will be ready by October 10.
The government expects that the scrutiny with the help of Mahila Pradhan agents will help in getting a valid list which will considerably reduce the financial liability.At present, about `580 crore is needed for a month’s pension to about 42 lakh social security pensioners and 9.5 lakh welfare fund board pensioners. The recent scrutiny helped in saving `8.30 crore. “New entries are on and about 1.25 lakh persons were added during Onam season. If the ineligible persons are not removed, the allocation will be high and the government will find it difficult to make payment in time,” officials said.