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Pension Payouts Reach a Dead End
Nidhi Sharma, The Times of India
India
August 18, 2005
Dead men, it is said, tell no tales. But they do leave a trail. And, one that a Delhi government inquiry has revealed that the social welfare department has been paying old age pensions to 10,131 dead persons and that about Rs 5-6 crore of the tax payer's money is lying unused -- locked in bank accounts and post offices.
And the sleuths who uncovered these startling details were anganwadi workers who were given Rs 10 for each case they verified.
The door-to-door survey sought to check out what happens to the Rs 350 a month to 156,131 senior citizens. It found that 27,000 "beneficiaries" are untraceable and 10,131 are dead.
In the case of untraceable beneficiaries, the persons seem to have either changed addresses or simply vanished.
Pensions of these people and the 10,131 deceased have been lying unclaimed in banks and post offices.
So far, the Government has been able to reclaim only Rs 64 lakh until July. But it needs to get Rs 6 crore more. A senior official said: "We have started contacting banks and post offices to get the unused money back. We have been able to close bank accounts and reclaim a lot of money. But the process of getting money back from post offices is very long drawn out."
The exercise started in January when the then director (social welfare) Jitendra Narayan decided to conduct a survey to verify Government records.
Till then, the government had never bothered to ascertain where its money goes. In February, the government advertised in newspapers asking relatives of beneficiaries to report deaths.
Not surprisingly, only 115 people came forward to report deaths. Between January to March, government found 3,000 beneficiaries who had died years ago. Till March 31, the social welfare department managed to get Rs 49 lakh back.
But the exercise took a long time. Finally, Delhi Cabinet decided to involve anganwadi workers, who were given monetary incentive of Rs 10 for verification of each case.
The exercise has now been completed. Now the government is trying to find out if there are people who are trying to take "double" advantage by drawing senior citizen pensions from Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) as well as Delhi government.
The official said that "We have not found any bungling so far. It is difficult for anyone to siphon off funds because only the beneficiary with a photo identity card can operate these accounts. The amounts disbursed are lying unused. These funds can be utilized for welfare of other senior citizens if we trace more cases."
Local MLAs and MPs recommend senior citizens above 60 years and handicapped senior citizens above 55 years for these pensions.
So far, the government had no mechanism to revise or verify this data.
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