The disbursement of pension to 25.66 lakh beneficiaries out of the total 65.69 lakh in the State for the month of April was completed, said Sashibhushan Kumar, Principal Secretary, Panchayat Raj and Rural Development, in a press release.
Further, the Principal Secretary said: “Instructions are issued to all the District Collectors to ensure that Village and Ward Secretariats start disbursing pensions from 7 a.m. onwards from Thursday, April 4, in view of summer heat waves.”
The State government has been providing pensions at the Village and Ward Secretariats after the Election Commission of India (ECI) barred the volunteers from distributing the money in any form while the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) is in place.
He added that the government has released ₹1,951.69 crore towards the social security pensions and that the district Collectors made all arrangements for the smooth disbursement of the amount to all the beneficiaries from April 3 to 6. The disbursement of pensions has commenced in 13,669 village and ward secretariats out of the total 14,994 in the State on Wednesday, he maintained.
The instructions issued in the guidelines with respect to the mandatory disbursement of pensions at the doorstep to four extremely vulnerable categories are re-iterated, and the district Collectors are requested to ensure the same by duly designing an effective action plan for its execution, he said, assuring that pensioners under these categories need not come to the secretariat, and the pensions will be disbursed at the beneficiaries’ doorsteps.
