MANGALURU : The Karnataka government has temporarily suspended the pensions of 18,06,032 beneficiaries after a statewide verification drive identified 23,14,544 pensioners as suspect cases as on August 13, 2026.
Replying to separate unstarred questions by MLAs D Vedavyas Kamath and Dr Y Bharat Shetty, Deputy Chief Minister Dr G Parameshwara said the verification exercise was launched after several people complained that those not meeting the eligibility criteria were receiving social security pensions.
The government deployed its Samyojana mobile application, which uses the family database to identify suspect beneficiaries based on parameters such as IT payees, APL card holders, underage applicants, income limit violations and HRMS (Human Resource Management System) records.
Village accountants conducted physical verification, collecting supporting documents and forwarding suspect cases to tahsildars for approval before restoring pensions to eligible beneficiaries.
As per Parameshwara’s reply, Karnataka has 83,12,536 registered pension beneficiaries, of whom 62,43,640 received pensions in July 2026.
The Sandhya Suraksha Yojane accounted for the largest number of suspected pension misuse cases, with 12,61,610 beneficiaries affected. It was followed by the Indira Gandhi National Old Age Pension Scheme (5,63,938), widow pension (3,36,746), physically disabled pension (2,56,750), Manaswini pension (17,360), endosulfan victims’ pension (883), pension for widows of farmers who died by suicide (526), Mythri pension (454) and acid attack victim pension (eight).
The pensions of 18,06,032 have been temporarily suspended as they were either not residing at the recorded address, unwilling to produce documents or had not submitted income certificates.
Belagavi tops suspect pension beneficiaries
The government said pensions will be restored to them once they furnish documents proving their eligibility.
District-wise, Belagavi reported the highest number of suspect beneficiaries at 1,82,758, of whom pensions were suspended temporarily for 1,51,311. Bengaluru Urban recorded 1,36,669 cases and 1,24,073 temporary suspensions, followed by Mysuru with 1,33,831 cases and 1,11,808 temporarily suspensions, Kalaburagi has 1,18,387 suspect and 98,984 suspended cases, Tumakuru has 1,18,217 suspect and 71,111 suspended cases, Davanagere has 1,04,805 suspected and 94,012 suspended cases, and Raichur has 1,01,272 suspected and 89,387 suspended cases.