While senior citizens in North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NMC) area haven’t received their pensions for the past one year, there is another bad news in store for them. Around 80,000 pensioners are at the receiving end as the NMC, which is facing financial crunch, has proposed to discontinue the pension scheme. The proposal is slated for discussion at Standing Committee meeting on Wednesday.
The Standing Committee is likely to take a resolution to shift the pension burden to State Government. According to sources, the corporation will now ask the Delhi Government to merge its pension scheme with the one being run by Social Welfare Department of the Delhi Government.
Justifying the move, the proposal claimed that pensioners are selected by MlAs and MPs hence their department should be used for this purpose of dispensing the scheme. Besides, the corporation also said that disbursement of old age pension is not mentioned under the obligatory and discretionary functions under Section 42 and 43 of the DMC Act.
The NMC, in its proposal, will highlight severe financial crunch it is facing with budget deficit of Rs500 to Rs700 crore every year. The document will also reflect the agency’s inability to disburse pensions amounting to nearly Rs142 crore since June last year.
Meanwhile, criticizing the proposal, leader of Opposition in NMC Mukesh Goel said that the BJP-ruled corporation is doing injustice with the poor people who cannot meet their daily requirements without pension. “The BJP is putting all efforts to stop releasing pension which is not acceptable in any manner. Elderly people are getting pension for the past 50 years from civic agency and the Opposition will not only oppose this proposal but will hit the streets to expose their insensitivity,” Goel said.
Earlier, East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) too pled the Delhi High Court to withdraw its pension scheme under which it had been paying a stipend to over 30,600 disabled, widowed and aged persons till March 2013. The submission was made before a Bench of justices — Badar Ahmed and Sanjeev Sachdeva — after it told the EDMC to take a policy decision on the issue.