Jaipur: Of the 90.8 lakh social security pensioners in Rajasthan, a whopping 13.5 lakh have been denied social security pension benefits assured to them by the state govt. Many of these ‘cancellations', records show, are for reasons such a erroneous declaration of death of a living person, failure to complete KYC, and declaration of people as non-residents even when they continue to reside within Rajasthan.
TOI looks at some of the starkest instances of poor and specially-abled individuals dependent on the state's financial assistance being denied their dues.
Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan – a civil society group, has claimed inaccurate entry of Aadhaar or other details on the pension portal, and challenges in verifying identities of elderly persons and specially-abled persons using biometric methods like fingerprints, iris scans, and facial recognition, are the reasons why the individuals have been denied their benefits.
Large-scale incorrect pension cancellations were observed in four pension camps conducted between August and October in Ajmer, Beawar, and Rajsamand. According to MKSS, in Beawar alone, out of 244 pensioners who attended the camp, 88 people's pensions were cancelled by incorrectly marking them as ‘out of state.' Thirty-nine of these were corrected, while the rest are pending. The pensions of four people were cancelled by incorrectly marking them as ‘dead.'
Additional chief secretary (ACS) Kuldeep Ranka said rectifying the mistakes is a continuous process, and the department restored the pensions of 9,688 beneficiaries by making corrections this year. "The mistakes happen at the level of the e-Mitras at the time of verification or when the pensioners, at times, fill the columns incorrectly. SDMs and BDOs are the sanctioning authorities in the urban and rural areas, respectively. The corrections are made at their level," he said.