HYDERABAD: The state government, aiming to curb leakages in the Aasara pension scheme, has identified several ineligible persons availing the benefit during the previous BRS administration. A recent Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty (SERP) survey revealed that even some government employees and their families were receiving Aasara pensions meant for poor elderly persons and others.
According to sources, a total of 5,650 retired government employees have been receiving Aasara benefits, in addition to their monthly pensions. Officials discovered that of these, 3,824 have died while the remaining 1,826 continue to receive dual pensions. Acting on this discovery, the government withheld Aasara pensions for these persons since June.
In Khammam and Bhadradri Kothagudem districts alone, 427 people were found to be illegally receiving double pensions. District officials estimated that around Rs 2.50 crore was misused in Khammam district through these illegal payments.
As per the scheme’s norms, Aasara pensions are designated for widows, single women, the elderly, beedi workers, stone cutters, handloom weavers, the disabled and patients in need of dialysis or suffering from filaria or AIDS. Eligibility also required being below the poverty line and possessing a white ration card.
In response to a post on social media by former minister and BRS working president KT Rama Rao, which criticised the recovery notice given to an 80-year-old woman named Dasari Mallamma in Kothagudem district as an inhuman act, officials clarified that Mallamma was receiving double pensions. Her daughter, Dasari Rajeshwari, an ANM worker who died in 2010, had her family pension of Rs 24,073 per month redirected to Mallamma. However, a recent survey indicated that Mallamma was also receiving an Aasara pension, leading district authorities to stop her Aasara pension from June.
Meanwhile, the state government has identified that approximately Rs 25,672 crore have been misused by paying Rythu Bandhu benefits to ineligible individuals, including real estate traders and entities like national highways and roads.