Bhubaneswar: The Social Security and Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (SSEPD) department, Thursday, rolled back its order regarding mandatory requirement of Aadhaar for receiving pensions under different social security schemes.
In an order issued to all the District Collectors Thursday, SSEPD secretary Bhaskar Jyoti Sarma has asked the former to ensure that eligible beneficiaries are not deprived of any of pension schemes due to non-availability of Aadhaar.
“The state government has decided that an eligible beneficiary should not be denied pension for not having Aadhaar. If somebody is alive and identifiable as a beneficiary he/she should not be denied pension for not having Aadhaar,” the letter from the department to the Collectors said.
It, however, asked them to ensure the issuance of Aadhaar to all the beneficiaries. The letter added, “It will be the responsibility of the local administration to identify these cases and provide them Aadhaar ID before the next phase of disbursement. A web-based system has now been put in place by which this data will be captured and monitored.”
The department has decided to upload block-level information of uncovered beneficiaries (without Aadhaar) on the department website for monitoring of the officials and taking corrective measures.
The department has given the task to block/municipal authorities for providing Aadhaar cards to the deprived beneficiaries before the next round of pension disbursement.
This comes after several reports of the most vulnerable sections of society being allegedly denied pension by the government officials due to the order of the SSEPD department.
“Please identity the pensioners whose Aadhaar could not be processed due to their disability such as blind persons/leprosy patients/very old persons/mentally retarded persons etc. Approval of competent authority may be expeditiously obtained for Aadhaar generation in such cases,” Collectors were told in the official communication.
As per government figures, close to 8.5 lakh pension beneficiaries were expected to be deprived of pensions if Aadhaar was made mandatory for withdrawal of pensions.
The department handles the pensions given under the central scheme of National Social Assistance Programme (NSAP) and state’s pension scheme of Madhu Babu Pension Yojana (MBPY). These pensions are meant for the most vulnerable sections of the society like old, sick, transgender, widow and the differently-abled.