A 1,000CC car or 1,200 sq.ft house may deny you pension

Thiruvananthapuram: The newly included set of instructions for processing applications for welfare pension is likely to give a tough time for city corporation.
The state government which has lifted the restriction on processing new applications for welfare pensions in the state has also introduced a few new conditions for processing fresh applications.
Persons residing in houses above 1,200sq.ft and those who own vehicles with engine capacity of more than 1,000CC (except taxi) shall not be eligible for social welfare pension.
New applicants will be eligible for only one pension; either welfare board pension or social welfare pension.
Those receiving disability pension shall be eligible for another pension at a rate of Rs 600. Those who have retired from public sector enterprises and receive pension cannot apply for social welfare pension.
Local body secretaries have been directed to process new applications based on the latest set of directives. Around 15,000 applications have been pending for data entry with city corporation since the past five months.
In the wake of new directives, each of these applications will have to be rechecked considering four newly-added guidelines; the major ones being whether the applicant resides in a house above 1,200 sq.ft or the applicant owns a vehicle with an engine capacity of more than 1000CC.
Although a few applications could be easily assessed based on other details, a field check will be essential in most cases with regard to finding engine capacity of cars and dimensions of houses.
The officials with city corporation have brought the matter to the notice of mayor V K Prasanth. Strict scrutiny of each application is expected to be a time consuming process and ruling council faces the risk of being criticized for delay in sanctioning applications for welfare pension.
“The city corporation receives high number of applications for welfare pension. These applications numbering over 15,000 will have to be scrutinized as per the new guidelines and it will be a difficult task. We have already lost nearly five months putting on hold these applications due to the filtration process and now with the added guidelines for scrutiny, we will lose more time,” a project official said.
Aadhaar verification has also been made mandatory for data entry of new applications and all those applicants without Aadhaar will not be eligible for data entry, which will also give rise to local protests, an official pointed out.
The government has directed that priority shall be given to those applicants who do not receive any kind of welfare pension at present and for others, the applications would be considered later.
The city corporation now disburses pension to 74,635 pensioners of which 50,320 are women and 24,315 are men. Old-age pension and widow pension schemes have got the highest number of beneficiaries at 38,246 and 25,316 respectively.