New Delhi: Minister of state for rural development Ram Kripal Yadav Saturday asked states to disburse pensions through bank accounts of beneficiaries and not by way of cash. Notably, Orissa is one of the few states in the country that make pension payments through cash.
Talking to Orissa POST, the minister said, “We cannot allow cash dispensation of pensions in the country as we have planned to shift to direct cash benefit transfer. We know there are issues in Orissa on this front and we are trying to sort them out.”
The minister said measures should be taken by the state government to increase linking of pensioners to banking systems. This is against the stand of the state government to disburse pensions of widow, aged and disabled through cash at the village level due to lack of penetration of banking systems in rural and tribal areas of the state.
Yadav said, “The state government also needs to cooperate with us and some efforts from their side is needed. I have reviewed the matter. Those states which are lagging in disbursing pensions through back accounts of the beneficiaries need to connect these services through banks.”
He however stated that such states would not be discriminated against by the Centre. “We are not stopping Central funds to states on account of their disbursement method. But we are strongly against cash disbursement as it gives a scope for corruption. We have asked states to link Aadhaar of pensioners with bank accounts and focus on paying through banks.”
The ministry is reported to have written to all states to do away with the practice of disbursing pensions to beneficiaries in cash and adhere to paying them in bank accounts only.
According to official correspondences with states, the ministry has made it clear that from the new fiscal (April 1, 2017) funds from Centre were given through Direct Benefit Transfer, directly into their accounts through the nodal bank accounts of different components of varied pension schemes and manual disbursement will be done away with.
Manish Kumar, OP
