RTI helps widow pensioner to regain her old age pension
15 May, 2013An eighty five year old widow, Lakshmamma from a slum near Ulsoor, was receiving her old age pension since 1983 but when she went to collect her pension for November 2011, she was told that her pension had been stopped. She had to live the next eleven months on the pity of her neighbours and others as a revision of the beneficiaries’ list had put her name in the list of dead beneficiaries.
Then an application was filed under the Right to Information (RTI) Act by a local RTI activist seeking to know the status of Lakshmamma’s widow pension. The activist also briefed the case to the Chief Information Commissioner at the State Information Commission (SIC) A K M Nayak which helped in the early hearing of the case. It was proved that the deletion of the widow’s name from the list of beneficiaries was a mistake and the tahsildar restored her pension of Rs. 500 per month with arrears of two months.
As per actiists, there are 31 persons from another village who have been wrongly included in the list of dead beneficiaries. It is alleged that the survey to determine the status of the beneficiaries and to remove the fake ones was not conducted properly. Such surveys are done to remove fake beneficiaries amidst reports of postmen siphoning off the pension in nexus with some fake beneficiaries.