Dead men tell no tales but they receive pension, at least in Punjab! The deadly reality of dead men rising from their ashes to receive pension came alive after re-verification of social security beneficiaries was revealed in Punjab.
It revealed that no less than 65,000 people, registered under the Government’s various social welfare schemes, were verified to be dead — indicating the existence of a massive rip-off.
What is more, as many as 2,45,935 social security pension holders in Punjab, including old-age pension, widow pension and disability pension, are found to be fake. There are around 20 lakh social security pension holders in Punjab.
More skeletons are likely to tumble out of the closet with Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh ordering a thorough probe into it.
Under these schemes, the State Government is paying Rs 500 per month to every pensioner — with the total estimated outlay of Rs 49.51 crore every year.
The alleged pension scam, running into crores of rupees, came to light with the re-verification process of more than 19.80 lakh pensioners across the State.
It was found that 65,743 dead people are registered under the old-age pension scheme and around 45,128 people registered have furnished wrong address details which could not be verified by the officials.
According to the re-verification report, as many as 42,437 people receiving the pensions are young, who do not meet the income category but a large numbers of them own properties worth lakhs.
The report also said that more than 10,000 people are rich senior citizens. According to officials, as many as 82,428 pension holders did not participate in the re-verification process.
Sensing trouble, the Congress Government had ordered re-verification of all beneficiaries under its social welfare schemes.
Ordering re-verification was one of the few initial decisions of the Congress Government after taking over the State reigns in March this year setting a six-month deadline to complete the process.
The Congress, while in Opposition, had all along alleged the SAD-BJP regime of giving social security benefits to the ineligible and fake claimants.