Letter to Prime Minister for simplifying procedure for Payment of Pension to Senior Citizens below Poverty Line.

To Date: 13-10-09.
Dr. Man Mohan Singhji,
Hon. Prime Minister of India,
South Block, New Delhi-101101.

Respected Sir,

Sub: Payment of Indira Gandhi National Old Age Pension (IGNOAPS) launched on 19-11-07.

You were kind enough to launch the above scheme for benefit of all Senior Citizens of 65 years and above living below poverty line as a Social Security Scheme and Support System. The Ministry of Rural Development issued instructions to States to grant this megre Pension to those citizens, who are 65 and above and belong to a household below the poverty line, which is decided as per their guidelines for BPL Census, 2002. In these guidelines, 13 socio-economic parameters were prescribed to identify relative position of each family in rural area by giving variable scores from village to village depending upon local conditions for targeting people under Ministry`s Rural BPL Programmes. No such guidelines are issued by Ministry of Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation for classifying an urban citizen as BPL. 13 socio-economic parameters may be useful to Ministry Of Rural Development for launching a particular scheme in a particular village or for a particular family but in no way can help in deciding the eligibility to pay megre monthly Pension to Senior Citizens of 65 & above having megre income or staying hand to mouth in their last spell of life. How far such house to house survey applying 13 complicated parameters having 4 different scoring can be useful to decide eligibility for monthly Pension to Senior Citizens? There is no necessity of targeting Senior Citizens neither for paying IGNOAPS nor to fix their interse eligibility. More over, such guidelines go on changing for every Five Year Plan Period. We may give one example to consider the impracticality of such guidelines. In the very well developed suburb of Mira Road of Mumbai, there are more than 4 lakhs of citizens having more than 80 thousand Senior Citizens, out of which 50 thousand are above 65 and more than 20 thousand are living below poverty line and pass their last spell of life hand to mouth. The number of all BPL Families, including citizens above 65 for this Area are only 17-seventeen, as advised by Municipal Corporation vide their letter no. ja.kra.manapa/sujayo/7/2009-10
dt 14-8-09. It would be clear from this that eligible Senior Citizens are not classified as belonging to BPL Families and not paid megre Pension due to complicated procedures causing corruption at various levels. Considering the poverty lines of each State, a financial income limit per month or per annum should be fixed for paying this megre Pension to Senior Citizens irrespective of their family income, as Senior Citizens staying in joint families and having no income or megre income are not properly looked after by children and not paid any pocket money etc. State of Maharashtra has fixed Rs. 21000 p.a. for their Schemes.

You will be surprised to know that there is no definition of Below Poverty Individual or Family either with Ministry of Rural Development or Planning Commission. The Planning Commission estimates the number and percentage of poor at National & State levels on the basis of rough and large sample survey data on house hold consumer expenditure at All-India figure of Rs 356.30 in Rural and Rs 538.60 in Urban Areas
(Press Information Bureau Estimates notified on 21-3-07).Such rough estimation can be used for providing Budget etc but not for deciding eligibility for payment of megre Pension to Senior Citizens of 65 and above.






In view of the above position and there being 3 Ministries of Rural Development, Housing and Planning Commission, it is requested that this simple work of payment to Senior Citizens may be assigned to the one concerned Ministry by fixing definition of Poverty Line (Maharashtra has fixed Rs.21000 p.a. for their Schemes) and not insisting on the unwarranted condition of belonging to BPL Family. Kindly get the financial income limit etc fixed to avoid corruption at various levels and procedure laid down for easy and early payment of this megre Pension to all eligible Senior Citizens.