Ramesh Says Old Age Pension of
Rs. 200 an Insult
New
Delhi
May 20, 2012
India

Inmates playing cards
at the old-age home in Punjab. Gurpreet
Singh/HT
The monthly
pension of Rs. 200 given to the elderly is "an
insult to the dignity of an individual", rural
development minister Jairam Ramesh has said,
requesting the Prime Minister to immediately
review the scheme.
In a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the
minister has recommended streamlining the
disbursal system of Indira Gandhi National Old Age
Pension Scheme (IGNOAPS) under which Rs. 200 per
month is given to three crore people over the age
of 60.
"I have always held the view that the amount of
pension that we are giving is an insult to the
diginity of the individual," he stated in his
letter dated May 16.
The minister raised the issue after a meeting with
the convenors of Pension Parishad Baba Adhav and
Aruna Roy few days back.
The key demands of the Parishad include removal of
poverty line criteria while implementing the
pension scheme, increasing the amount of pension
from Rs. 200 to Rs. 300 and reducing the age
eligibility from 60 years to 55 for men and 50 for
women.
"I agree with the Pension Parishad that use of BPL
and APL criteria should be done away with. We are
proposing to do away with the BPL and APL criteria
in the sanitation programme and in the National
Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) as well," Ramesh
wrote in the letter.
On timely disbursement of pension, he noted,
"Pensioners do not get monthly payments but get
payments bunched once every few months. Immediate
task is to restructure the pension payment
architecture so that pensioners get pension amount
on an assured date in the bank account every
month."
He further added that he has recommended the same
for the Indira Awas Yojana (IAY). "Even in the
IAY, I have written to deputy chairman, Planning
Commission that the BPL and APL criteria has only
ended up ensuring that deserving families do not
get that benefit," Ramesh said.
The rural development ministry has already
submitted proposal in this regard to the finance
ministry.
Ramesh, however, disagreed with the Parishad's
suggestion to lower the eligibility age for
pension from the present 60 to 55 for men and 50
for women.
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