KAKINADA: Yerramsetti Veera Swamy and Rama Ratnam are a happy couple today. After TNIE reported the denial of social security pension to Veera Swamy, East Godavari officials handed over his pension of Rs 3,000 for the month of November on Friday afternoon.
Veera Swamy, 85, had been denied pension—and ration—for the past four months after he had failed to get his eKYC done. The octogenarian could not register himself over the eKYC biometric device using thumb impression or a retina scan since he had lost both his arms and vision in a fire accident at a fireworks unit, where he used to work, some four decades ago.
TNIE highlighted the plight of Veera Swamy in a report titled, ‘Who’s blind? Babus deny pension to armless man’, on Friday. P Gannavaram Mandal Parishad Development Officer (MPDO) Isukapatla Immanuel Kumar said the district collector, C Hari Kiran, directed the officials concerned on Friday to address the issue on a priority basis. Following the directive, the Chief Executive Officer of the Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty (SERP) A Md Imtiaz sanctioned the pension for the disabled to Veera Swamy.
MPDO Kumar visited Veera Swamy’s house at Lankala Gannavaram village and handed over the pension (pictured). However, the pension that was denied for four months could not be disbursed since his name was not in the rolls. A visibly overwhelmed couple with welled-up eyes thanked the official for the pension.
Lost arms, vision in a fire accident 4 decades ago
The octogenarian could not register himself over the eKYC biometric device using thumb impression or a retina scan since he had lost both his arms and vision in a fire accident at a fireworks unit, four decades ago