Welfare pension to be distributed on June 20
Thiruvananthapuram: Close on the heels of the Nilambur assembly bypoll, finance minister K N Balagopal announced on Monday the distribution of the next instalment of social welfare pension on June 20, a day after the bypoll date.
As many as 62 lakh beneficiaries receive Rs 1,600 as a social security pension. Social welfare pension was one of the key debate points during the Nilambur byelection campaign. The CPM strongly opposed AICC general secretary K C Venugopal's remark that the CPM was trying to use welfare pension as a bribe to woo voters. Following CPM's counter attack, Venugopal clarified that he was referring to the politicisation of the welfare pension and that his criticism against the state govt should not be construed as an insult to the beneficiaries, as alleged by the CPM.
A note from the office of the finance minister stated that the LDF govt has spent Rs 38,500cr on welfare pensions in the last four years. The first Pinarayi Vijayan govt spent Rs 35,154cr on the distribution of welfare pensions. This included the 18 months of pension arrears during the period of the Oommen Chandy govt. Balagopal said the LDF govts, in the last nine years, spent Rs 73,654cr on welfare pensions.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Hans India
35 minutes ago
- Hans India
Cong always betrayed OBCs: BJP
New Delhi:The BJP on Monday accused the Congress of always deceiving and betraying the Other Backward Classes following the Karnataka government's decision to junk an earlier caste survey in favour of a fresh count. Union minister and BJP leader Bhupender Yadav asked for fixing accountability, noting that over Rs 165 crore of public money was spent in carrying out the now-dumped caste survey. Yadav claimed that the Congress has a history of betraying the OBC interests as he recalled that its governments at the Centre had ignored the Kaka Kalelkar Commission report on empowering the backward classes. The party also opposed the Mandal Commission recommendations, he said. He told reporters that Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said the decision for a new caste survey was not his government's but the Congress leadership's. Yadav questioned such an intervention of the party in the government's decision-making and compared it with the interference from Sonia Gandhi-headed National Advisory Council in the UPA government.
Hans India
35 minutes ago
- Hans India
Census in J&K, Ladakh, Himachal, U'Khand in 2026, rest in 2027
New Delhi: Sixteen years after the last census in 2011, the government on Monday issued a notification for conducting India's 16th census which will include caste enumeration in 2027. The census will be carried out with a reference date of October 1, 2026 in the snow-bound areas like Ladakh and March 1, 2027 in the rest of the country, the notification said. "The reference date for the said census shall be 00.00 hours of the 1st day of March, 2027, except for the Union territory of Ladakh and snow-bound non-synchronous areas of the Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir and the States of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand," it said. In respect of Ladakh and snow-bound non-synchronous areas of the Union Territory (UT) of Jammu and Kashmir and the states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, the reference date shall be 00:00 hours of the first day of October, 2026, it said. The massive exercise, which is expected to cost the government over Rs 13,000 crore to give population-related data from across the country, will be conducted by about 34 lakh enumerators and supervisors and around 1.3 lakh census functionaries armed with digital devices. Union Home Minister Amit Shah reviewed the preparation for the census with Union Home Secretary Govind Mohan, Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India Mritunjay Kumar Narayan, and other senior officials here on Sunday. In the upcoming census, caste enumeration will also be done, the first such exercise since Independence. The last comprehensive caste-based count was done by the Britishers between 1881 and 1931. Caste was excluded from all census operations conducted since Independence. The decision to include caste enumeration in the upcoming census was taken by the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on April 30. "Considering all these circumstances, and to ensure that our social fabric does not come under political pressure, it has been decided that caste enumeration should be included in the main census instead of being conducted as a separate survey," an official statement had said. In 2010, then prime minister Manmohan Singh had assured the Lok Sabha that the matter of caste census would be considered in the cabinet. A group of ministers was formed to deliberate on this subject and majority of the political parties recommended conducting a caste census. However, the previous Congress-led government opted for a survey instead of a caste census, known as the Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC).
Hans India
35 minutes ago
- Hans India
Won't politicise Ahmedabad plane crash: Shivakumar
Bengaluru: Lashingout at the BJP and JDS for their 'politics over dead bodies' brand of politics, Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar on Monday said that the Congress party would not politicise the Ahmedabad plane crash. 'We won't stoop to the lows of BJP and JDS and won't try to politicise the Ahmedabad plane crash,' the DCM said while speaking to reporters at his Sadashivanagar residence. Replying to queries, he said, 'A tragedy like the Ahmedabad plane crash should not happen anywhere in the world. It is devastating to see the crash site. Thousands of people would have died had the plane travelled another 500 meters before crashing. Unfortunately, several students of a medical college are dead in the crash and many are traumatised. A Congress party delegation under the leadership of Mallikarjun Kharge met some of the injured and enquired about their health.' Asked if questions are being raised about the functioning of the Union Aviation Minister, he said, 'We refuse to do politics over dead bodies. We can talk a lot of things comparing it to how things were handled in the past, but we do not want to stoop to their level. There are many technical aspects to this crash. I am not an expert and I won't criticise the Union Aviation Minister at this juncture. It is a serious issue.' Asked about Kumaraswamy's statement that he would have given Rs 5000 under Gruhalakshmi given the amount of taxes the state government was collecting, he said, 'Happy to hear that, let him get well soon.'
