KAKINADA: Numerous visits to government offices for the past two years and submitting petitions during Spandana programme have not helped 62-year-old Nandivada Bhima Raju to get disability pension.
Bhima Raju resides in VAMBAY houses under the 16th division of Rajamahendravaram Municipal Corporation (RMC). He used to work as a cloth merchant in the city and surrounding villages until he suffered a paralysis attack in 2019. He has four children and had parted ways with his wife.
Doctors certified him to be 90 per cent disabled and even issued a SADAREM (Software for Assessment of Disabled for Access Rehabilitation and Empowerment) certificate in 2020. Bhima Raju’s efforts to get disability pension have been hitting a roadblock since two years as his application keeps getting rejected for one or the other reason.
This time, the problem was identified to be his marital status, which was wrongly-marked as ‘widow.’
He submitted a petition during Spandana at the Kakinada Collectorate two times.
‘Problem can be rectified at ward secretariat’
However, after the restructuring of districts, his residence now falls under the East Godavari district Rajamahendravaram Collectorate. Bhima Raju and his wife went to the municipal corporation office, District Rural Development Agency (DRDA) office and collectorate, seeking a solution to the technical problem. When Bhima Raju took up the issue with DRDA officials, they informed him that the issue should be resolved at the secretariat level.
Meanwhile, Welfare Secretary of the 41st ward secretariat, S Srihari told TNIE that they had entered Bhima Raju’s name for the disability pension on 11 February, 2022. But in the application, his marital status was marked as ‘widow’ due to technical issues. Hence, his application was rejected. The problem is not at the secretariat level, he clarified.
Bhima Raju and his wife went to Kakinada DRDA again to get the issue resolved. DRDA in-charge project director S Degalaiah said the problem could be rectified after consulting the ward secretariat. He informed that at the ward secretariat level, data entry operators have the option to freeze and unfreeze the details filled in the application.
“If it is unfreezed, then the applicant will be eligible to receive pension from December-2022 as pensions are disbursed in July and December,’’ he said. In a similar case, 50-year-old Vallem Joga Rao of Hamsavaram village in Tuni mandal has 90 per cent disability due to paralysis. Joga Rao applied for a disability pension after getting a SADAREM certificate and submitted two petitions during Spandana in Kakinada.
After verification, it was learnt that he and another person, Juttuga Satyanarayana, shared the same Aadhaar number. As Satyanarayana was receiving oldage pension and Joga Rao became ineligible to receive disability pension. DRDA officials said the problem would be rectified soon.