Central defaults add to Kerala’s social-security payment concerns

About Rs 900 crore is required for monthly payments to 52.50 lakh social-security pensioners and seven lakh pensioners under various welfare fund boards.
The employees and pensioners also staged a protest demanding salary and pension. (File Photo)
The employees and pensioners also staged a protest demanding salary and pension. (File Photo)

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Even as the Kerala government struggles to fund its social-security payments, the Centre has defaulted on its last three payments due to the state. The Centre’s share, about Rs 250 crore, is paid in half-yearly tranches in April and October.

The central government has cited the delay in integrating of pensioners’ databases for the non-payment. The integration of the Centre’s Public Financial Management System and the state’s Sevana database is to be carried by the former. Technical issues have hampered the process even as the state has taken up the issue with the Union ministry of rural development multiple times.

About Rs 900 crore is required for monthly payments to 52.50 lakh social-security pensioners and seven lakh pensioners under various welfare fund boards. The spending on social security pension is about Rs 770 crore while Rs 110 crore is paid out as welfare fund board pension. Not all pensioners are eligible for central assistance. The Centre sponsors payment for 6.88 lakh pensioners.

Meanwhile, Kerala Social Security Pension Limited (KSSPL), a state-government company formed to source loans for pension payment, had limited its operations after the Centre’s revised norms on Off-Budget Borrowings (OBBs) came into effect. Under this, OBBs by state government companies will be considered a direct liability of the government and hence would be adjusted in the Net Borrowing Ceiling (NBC) of the government.

The KSSPL did not avail loans this fiscal and the government is providing the whole sum to the company now. The government also pays incentives to cooperative societies which conduct home delivery of pension. This comes to around Rs 13 crore every month.

MUSTERING PLANS

The government is likely to drop the plan to assign India Post with the proposed annual mustering exercise for social-security pensioners. This follows the demand by Akshaya Centres which had cooperated with the previous mustering exercise that began in 2019.

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