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Jaipur, July 15 (HS). Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Avinash Gehlot said in the Assembly on Monday that it is a serious matter that senior citizens are deprived of their pension due to wrong verification by e-Mitra operators. He assured the House that appropriate action will be taken against such e-Mitra operators after investigation and if found guilty, their license will also be cancelled.
The Social Justice and Empowerment Minister was answering supplementary questions asked by the member in this regard during Question Hour. He said that every possible effort is being made by the department to provide pension benefits to old age pensioners on time. In case biometric verification is not possible on mobile, annual physical verification of the pensioner is being done by providing OTP on the mobile of the concerned sanctioning officer. He said that the Sub-Divisional Officer for urban areas and the Block Development Officer for rural areas are the sanctioning officers.
Gehlot said that to fulfil the objections related to pension of the elderly who are deprived of pension, the Gram Sevak will be directed through the BDO to reach out to each elderly person, so that no elderly person is deprived of pension. Apart from this, pension verification can also be done by sending the e-mitra operator to the residence of the physically disabled elderly.
Earlier, in a written reply to the original question of MLA Dr. Jaswant Singh Yadav, the Social Justice and Empowerment Minister said that in the last three years, a total of 23,068 elderly pensioners have been found eligible under the Social Security Pension Scheme in the Behror Assembly constituency. Out of these, pension is being given to 22,619 pensioners and the cases of 449 pensioners are pending due to various reasons. He informed that the cases of 21 pensioners are pending due to wrong verification by e-Mitra, 407 due to death of pensioners, 04 due to wrong bank details and 17 pensioners due to not getting physical verification done in the year 2023.
He informed that in the said scheme, in order to provide benefit to those deprived of the scheme due to non-linking of mobile number with Aadhar Card of eligible senior citizens and non-biometric verification, an additional facility has been provided by the government on the pension portal, through which annual physical verification of the pensioner is being done by providing OTP on the mobile of the concerned approving officer.
Gehlot placed on the table of the House the details of the total eligible applications as per the information received from the portal under the Palanhar Yojana in the last 3 years in the Assembly constituency of Behror. He informed that the cases are pending because the applicants have not attached the category wise prescribed documents under the scheme such as children's study certificates, mother/father's death certificate etc.
Social Justice and Empowerment Minister said that under Rule 9 Sub-rule 6 of Palanhar Yojana, for completion of objections in such application forms, the foster care is informed through system based message on the registered mobile number of the foster care provider within 30 days, 45 days and 60 days from the date of raising the objection and even after this, in case the objection is not cleared, additional time of 30 days is given. Besides the above, from time to time the deficiencies in the applications are completed by establishing coordination with the foster care providers.
