Senior citizens pension withheld due to Centre not paying share: Delhi Assembly panel

New Delhi, Dec 28 The Delhi Assembly's Petitions Committee on Wednesday said that despite the Delhi government's constant efforts, pensions of as many as 4,26,058 senior citizens repeatedly get withheld due to Central government's non-payment of its share and the state Finance Department's arbitrary roadblocks in the process.

The committee held a meeting with officials of the Finance Department as well as those of the Social Welfare Department to enquire into the complaint of non-payment of pensions.

"The Committee has learnt that out of the pension of Rs 2,000 given to the elderly, some 1,11,361 people get a share of Rs 200 from the Central government and Rs 1,800 from the Delhi government. For the last one and a half years, the Centre has not been giving its share of Rs 200 for the pension of the elderly, there is a constant delay of 2-3 months in the pension of the elderly on part of the Finance Department because of the missing Rs 200," said AAP leader Saurabh Bhardwaj.

Bhardwaj said that MLAs have been complaining that the pension that is provided by the Delhi government to the senior citizens has been delayed by 3-4 months. Even before Diwali, the Petitions Committee had instructed the officials to immediately clear the pension of senior citizens that had been held up for 2-3 months.

"Today again, a meeting was held on this issue and the officials of the Social Welfare Department informed the committee members that out of the Rs 2,000 pension that is given to some senior citizens, a component of Rs 200 comes from the Central government. The remaining amount of Rs 1,800 is provided by the state government. But for the last 18 months, the Central government has not been providing its share of Rs 200," he told media.

He said that on Wednesday, they have instructed the Finance Department to find a permanent solution to this problem. "We have asked them to assume that the Central government will not provide the funds for its component and asked them to take the entire amount of Rs 2,000 from the Delhi government."

However, he also added that the Principal Secretary, Finance, Ashish Chandra Verma did not attend Wednesday's meeting. The Committee found this to be unfortunate and also tried to phone the official, but he did not pick up his phone.

"If the Principal Secretary, Finance, had attended today's meeting, we believe that this issue could have been resolved at the earliest. The Committee expressed its displeasure that the Principal Secretary, Finance, did not attend its meeting and believes that the official has been creating such issues due to which the constitutional duties of the Delhi government and particularly, those of the Social Welfare Department have been getting hampered," he said.

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