Thiruvananthapuram: Pension delivery will have to wait

Thiruvananthapuram: The government, which promised delivery of welfare pensions before Christmas, inaugurated the disbursal of pensions from cooperative banks only on the day after Christmas. So those who had opted for delivery of pensions to their homes will have to wait. That will be only a couple of days of wait, according to Thiiruvananthapuram Corporation Welfare Committee chairperson R Geetha Gopal. “There was a shortage of currency notes due to demonetisation. So the inaugural ceremony was deferred. From tomorrow the delivery to homes will start,” she said. There will be a delay in the case of the ones who chose the money order option.

“Post offices would have received the money very late. The government started making the notes available on December 23,” says Geetha. Not too many have opted for pension delivery through cooperative banks. In Geetha Gopal’s Muttada ward, of 180 beneficiaries who have submitted self-declaration forms, only 10 have chosen this option. “Not more than 1500 beneficiaries in the Corporation would want the pensions to be delivered at home,” says Geetha. The beneficiaries, who had submitted their forms early, have started getting their pensions.

Geetha said that the process had been initiated in the case of all 51,000 pensioners who submitted their forms on time. They would be getting Rs 3000 – pension for October, November and December.  Kesavadasapuram Councillor Stephy George said, “When Kudumbashree conducted their survey of pensioners, I noticed that there were around 700 pensioners from my ward. Now, only 350 have submitted self-declaration forms. Of these, at least 50 would not have known about the form. The ones who submitted their forms late have not got their pension.”