Cuttack: The Orissa High Court has directed Cuttack district Collector to provide enhanced old age pensions to some elderly people of Napang panchayat under Tangi-Choudwar block.
The HC has asked the district collector to provide the enhanced pension to the beneficiaries concerned retrospectively from December 15 last year.
The state government has been providing Rs 300 as old age pension for last several years. Last year, the government had decided to pay Rs 500 as old age pension to people who have crossed 80 years.
However, several elderly people of Napang including Kartik Barik (82), Ratani Devi (83), Duhshasan Behera (92), Bishnu Samal (93), Mahant Samal (88) and Narayan Das (81) have been denied the enhanced pension due to callousness of the authorities concerned.
The aggrieved beneficiaries had raised the issue with the panchayat executive officer, block development officer (BDO) and the sub-collector, but to no avail. They subsequently moved the HC seeking justice.
In a related development, the HC has also directed the Collector to provide old age pension to 10 elderly persons of Napang who had applied for the same in 2013.
Rehman Khan and nine others of Napang had filed a petition in the HC after they were excluded from the old age pension scheme.