“Govt don’t have Kubera’s treasure to give pension to everyone”: LG Sinha
Aman Zutshi
J&K UT Governor Manoj Sinha on Friday said that the govt don’t have Kubera’s treasure to give pension to everyone in Jammu and Kashmir.
Inaugurating the Pensioners Sammelan here, the LG said that his regime in J&K cannot provide pension to everyone because they (LG Govt) don’t possess Kubera’s treasure.
The LG Sinha further said that in 2016 PM Modi increased the monthly amount of pension for locals in J&K from Rs 200/month to Rs 1000/month.
“If someone think it’s salary it is not because it is an aid and PM Modi hiked it to five times in the year 2016 in J&K. In other parts of country there is an age limit to avail widow pension decided by the govt and J&K is the only place in the entire country where a person can get pension below the age of 40 years”, LG claimed.
“J&K is only UT where we have decided to give financial aid to a widow woman who is eighteen years old”, he added.
Talking about the specially fitted scooties given to specially-abled persons in J&K, the LG said: “If I talk about disable persons we have provided relaxation to them here. In other states the criteria for disable persons to get scooties is difficult. They can get vehicles here in J&K only because their level of disability is mild”.
“I want to tell Jammu Mayor that the pension whether old age or widow pension is for destitute people and nor District Magistrate neither LG have the authority to prepare or change the beneficiaries list.
“When census takes place it gets decided who is poor or not and who can avail pension. The eligibility of getting pension is not that a person can’t get pension if they don’t have a Priority Household (PHH) ration card. I want to emphasise that an eligible person can get pension on the basis of old Priority Household (PHH) ration card record.”, LG Sinha emphasised.
“This just an allusion the beneficiaries have been given pension and the remaining people will also be given pension but non-eligible persons can’t get it from anyone. The govt will suffer losses if non-eligible people get pension because the govt don’t have Kubera’s treasure to give pension to everyone. The regime run such schemes by reducing expenditures in other things to help poor”, he said.
“We have done what can be possibly done to provide relief to people and we welcome such suggestions but when govt schemes are misused it directly affects poor people. The govt has ensured that the pension reaches to everyone digitally because it was a financial and physical challenge for elderly people to go to banks to renew their pensions”, LG Sinha remarked.
