50k disabled suffer as govt stops pension amid curbs

Ranchi: Thirty-two-year-old Ormanjhi village resident Rajesh Kumar, who has a disabled leg, is finding it difficult to make his ends meet owing to a lack of job and non-disbursal of the government disability pension last few months. His wife, who worked as a maid, has also lost her job making it difficult for them to sustain their family of four.
Kumar is not alone. Thousands of disabled persons like him are facing several financial crises during the lockdown in the state after the government stopped their monthly pension of Rs. 1,000 for the past several months.
To mitigate the crisis soon, the Jharkhand Viklang Manch (JVM), an umbrella group for disabled people, headquartered in Jamshedpur, had written a letter to chief minister Hemant Soren appealing him to release the monthly pensions. The government has assured to release the pension soon.
Talking to TOI, JVM president Arun Kumar Singh said, “While everyone is talking about migrants, poor people and other marginalised groups, there is none to raise the problems faced by the disabled in Jharkhand at a time when they are also reeling under the pandemic. Since September-October last year, the state government has stopped the monthly disabled pension to beneficiaries. We urge the state government to release the pension immediately.”
The Centre and the state government run two disabled pension schemes simultaneously but a beneficiary is entitled to avail only one of the two schemes under which he or she will get Rs 1,000 per month.
According to Singh, there are about two-lakh beneficiaries of the schemes in the state. Though the total number of persons, who are unable to get the pension couldn’t be ascertained, Singh said roughly put the number to over 50,000 people. He said the pension was stopped suddenly by the government, citing various reasons like lack of funds, delay in document verification and non-release of funds by the Centre among others.
Singh added, "We appeal to the state government to release the pension immediately irrespective of the hurdles, which can be sorted out later on like the announcement of ration for those without ration cards. The disabled people must too get their pensions whether the document verification is pending or not.”
The women and child development and social security minister, Joba Manjhi, who is the JMM MLA from West Singbhum, assured that funds will be released soon. “The department is aware of the problem and funds will be released very soon now,” she told TOI.