Latest news with #OldAgePension
NDTV
2 days ago
- Politics
- NDTV
Delhi Minister Orders Officials To Clear Old Age Pension Cases In 15 Days
New Delhi: Delhi minister Ravinder Indraj Singh on Wednesday directed district social welfare officials to clear all pending cases under the Old Age Pension scheme within 15 days, an official statement said. Chairing a meeting with officials of his department, the Social Welfare minister instructed them to ensure strict adherence to the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) to ensure timely delivery of benefits under various welfare schemes, the statement said. Mr Singh said he recently conducted surprise inspections at several district offices and interacted with beneficiaries, during which multiple complaints were received. "Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta has clearly instructed that every citizen and beneficiary visiting district offices must be given full support. Applications should be processed within the set timeline and pension payments must be made on time," he said. Mr Singh also asked officials to expedite decisions on applications under the Family Assistance Scheme and other similar programmes, adding that most beneficiaries under pension and social welfare schemes come from economically weaker and marginalised communities. "They should not be forced to visit offices repeatedly. District offices represent the government and people's experiences at these centres must be positive and respectful," he said. The minister further said he will continue to conduct unannounced inspections at both district offices and the department's headquarters. Mr Singh asked senior officers to take strict action against any official found responsible for delays or negligence based on complaints.
The Hindu
27-04-2025
- Business
- The Hindu
Public Distribution System compromised by irregularities
A serious scrutiny of the Public Distribution System (PDS), which was introduced with the objective of providing essential commodities at a fair price and of good quality to the public, reveals irregularities allegedly occurring at ration shops, compromising its purpose and relevance to a large extent. As per official records, the Public Distribution System was implemented in the country during the inter-war period with focus on distribution of food grains in urban scarcity areas and emanated during the food shortage crisis in 1960s. In the subsequent years, reports and studies showed that the system had substantially contributed to containment of rise in prices of food grains and ensured access to food to urban consumers. 'As the national agricultural production grew in the aftermath of Green Revolution, the outreach of PDS was extended to tribal blocks and areas of high incidence of poverty in the 1970s and 1980s,' reads the official website of the Department of Food and Distribution System. Though lauded for its reach and service to people living in remote areas, the system appears to be compromised due to loopholes, raising questions about its authenticity and genuineness. For instance, an issue that does not directly affect the public but causes a huge loss to the government exchequer is bogus entry of products on a card holder's registry. When a customer with a sugar card, who is eligible for sugar, urad dal and commodities, wishes to buy only sugar and not the other two products, the bill received by the card holder in mobile phone mostly includes the other two unpurchased products. As per government records, all ration card holders have one of the cards – rice card, sugar card, no commodity card, Old Age Pension (OAP) cards, Annapoorna card and Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) - based on income criteria. Take the case of A. Muniyandi, a resident of Vairavanpatti near Karungalakudi. He is an agricultural labourer and a rice card holder. Most of the time, he gets rice from the farm where he works and does not buy from the ration shop. 'While I buy only sugar and oil, for which I am eligible, rice too gets automatically registered in my account,' he says. When he questioned about the wrong entry, he was told that he would not be losing anything as he was not paying for the rice. Also, he was told by the shop staff that inclusion of the rice was for regularising the stock input of the particular store. In Madurai district, which has 1,389 PDS outlets, about 8,70,300 rice cards, 30,000 sugar cards, 5,000 commodity cards, 5,000 OAP cards, 10 Annapoorna cards and 57 AAP cards are registered. A resident of Kamarajar Salai, who is a rice card holder, says when he asked for free rice for which he was eligible, he was asked to pay ₹50 for 20 kg. 'Also, as I do buy rice regularly, the staff said I would be given only five kg. Only when I get it regularly, will I receive the full quota.' If similar bogus registration is made in each of these shops, where does the rice make its way, asks Gowtham Barathi of Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) at Palanganatham. Mr. Barathi, who has raised similar issues with officials and has even staged protests on the issue of regularisation of the billing system, points out that though PDS shops, which are also known as fair price shops, are still relevant among the public, illegalities such as false billing, distribution of substandard products and high prices have reduced their popularity. At the initial stage, the rice or other products held back at the shops after billing is sold locally for a fixed price. As the practice has been expanded to include almost all shops in the State, there appears to be a syndicate that transports the unsold-yet-billed products to factories and rice processing units, Mr. Barathi claims. Gnanasekaran, a resident of Kathchaikatti in Vadipatti taluk, says they were blacklisted after questioning the shop staff about the wrong billing. 'In order to avoid such encounters with the staff and local politicians who oversee all the activities, the public stop questioning as it does not affect them,' he rues. In rural areas, particularly, the lack of awareness of the public is exploited and such irregularities are committed without any fear of repercussions, Mr. Gnanasekaran adds. Not just this, the products distributed in rural PDS shops are inferior in quality when compared to those sold in urban areas, he says. A civil supplies-CID official, seeking anonymity, says that while most of the rice seized by them are transported directly from Tamil Nadu Civil Supplies Corporation godowns (warehouses), some of the goods originate from the shops too. 'As the goods that are illegally transported are not directly linked to the shops due to involvement of middlemen, the actual culprits cannot be caught in most of the cases.' Also, to avoid legal pitfalls, PDS shop staff use locals to sell products such as oil and urad dal to nearby eateries and residential areas. 'Even in some cases, the goods that are sold illegally to outer markets are withheld from customers by telling them that the product is out of stock,' he says. A senior revenue official says the anomalies are mostly avoided through the digital billing system which is being used at all shops. 'As the goods are mostly procured based on monthly needs, there will be np pending goods in the shop.' Even when there is pending stock, it will be added to the following month's stock records, he adds.
