Even as the YSR Congress party and the Telugu Desam Party indulged in ugly politics over disbursement of pensions to the eligible beneficiaries, the state government finally began the exercise in the evening, after keeping the pensioners waiting at the village and ward secretariats since morning.
According to Shashibhushan Kumar, principal secretary of panchayat raj and rural development, the disbursement of pension to the 65.69 lakh beneficiaries commenced in all the districts on Wednesday.
He said the government had released an amount of Rs 1951.69 crore for this purpose.
The district collectors made all arrangements for smooth distribution of pensions to all the pensioners from April 3 to 6 April.
He said in all, 13,669 village/ward secretariats, out of 14,994, commenced disbursement of pensions. On the first day, 25.66 lakh beneficiaries were paid pensions.
Kumar said instructions issued in the guidelines with respect to the mandatory doorstep disbursement of pensions to 4 extremely vulnerable categories are re-iterated and the district collectors are requested to ensure the same duly designing an effective action plan for the same.
“Pensioners under the vulnerable category need not come to secretariat and disbursement of the pensions will happen at the door steps of the beneficiaries,” the principal secretary said.
Instructions are issued to all the District Collectors to ensure that Village/Ward secretariats shall start disbursement of pensions from morning 7.00 am onwards from tomorrow in view of summer heat waves.
Earlier, chief Secretary K S Jawahar Reddy, who held a teleconference with all the district collectors, directed that arrangements should be made for disbursal of pensions to the very old, differently abled, infirm and the bed-ridden, sick and wheel-chair bound pensioners and elderly widows at their doorsteps.
However, there have been reports of chaos at the village and ward secretariats in several districts with hundreds of pensioners queuing up there to collect pensioners, only to be turned down by the secretariat staff saying they were yet to draw money from the banks.
Adding to this, there were visuals in the television channels showing YSR Congress party workers carrying old and sick pensioners on cots and wheel-chairs to the village/ward secretariats for receiving pensions, blaming the TDP leaders for the plight of the pensioners.
Finally, the pension distribution started after 4 pm.
