Majority of them do not have disability certificate how will they be linked? http://www.telegraphindia.com/1150219/jsp/frontpage/story_4318.jsp Basant Kumar Mohanty New Delhi, Feb. 18: The Centre has linked the disbursal of monthly pension to millions of senior citizens, widows and physically challenged beneficiaries to the completion of a socio-economic caste census (SECC) by states and Union territories.
As of now, as many as 23 states and Union territories are lagging in carrying out the survey. Bengal is among those states that are expected to meet the March-end deadline. If the Centre sticks to its stand, the beneficiaries in the laggard regions will not be able to access the monthly pension of Rs 200 from April. These 23 states and Union territories account for around 20 million pensioners. Around 30 million people across the country are eligible for the pension which costs the Centre Rs 10,000 crore a year. The rural development ministry had last month conveyed the deadline to all states and Union territories in a rare instance of cracking the whip to expedite collection of data with a bearing on welfare schemes. So far, only nine states and Union territories have completed the census. Four states, including Bengal, Bihar and Jharkhand, are on the verge of completing it. Only these 13 are expected to meet the deadline set in a letter L.C. Goyal, who was then rural development secretary and is now the home secretary, wrote to the chief secretaries and administrative officials of all states and Union territories. The survey used to be called the BPL (below poverty line) census earlier but was renamed in 2011 after the government decided to collate caste data along with data on economic parameters. The last BPL census was done in 2002, when the states took about two years to complete it, and the last caste census was conducted in 1930. Compared to the population census that is conducted every decade, this will collect more wide-ranging data on households. The socio-economic caste census will provide household data such as whether a house is kutcha or pucca, if there is any adult male member between the age of 16 and 59 in the family, whether the household has any disabled member, if it is landless, or owns vehicles, telephone and other high-end amenities. The data is to be used by the Centre to better target welfare schemes like national food security, housing under the Indira Awas Yojana and the pension scheme itself. At present, the 2002 data is being used. "If the ministry does not withdraw its order, the majority of beneficiaries under the pension schemes will not get pension for the month of April," said an authoritative source in the ministry. States such as Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Punjab are yet to notify the draft list of beneficiaries. The draft list has to be notified in gram panchayat offices and claims and objections sought. After these are settled, the final list can be brought out. Sources said this would take about three months, which means it will be June by the time the states complete the census. Every person covered under the census is allotted a 29-digit Temporary Identification Number (TIN). The ministry has decided that the TIN of individual beneficiaries will have to be mentioned in the software for all schemes by March. If the TIN is not mentioned, benefits will not be released. Social activist Nikhil Dey said: "The Centre is equally responsible for the delay. The Centre had to provide the technical support and monitor the progress of SECC." The census was launched in June 2011 and was to be completed by December 2011. The ministries of rural development and housing and urban poverty alleviation and the registrar-general of India supervised and coordinated the exercise, but the implementation was left to the states. "If there has been delay by the state government and Centre, the pensioners are not responsible. They should not be penalised," Dey said. The laggard states are blaming the Centre for the delay. Odisha said it did not get technical support for date collection from the Electrical Corporation of India Ltd (ECIL) in time. "Despite the matter being raised before the ministry, there was delay in getting the machines and software assistance," an Odisha government official said. -- Avinash Shahi Doctoral student at Centre for Law and Governance JNU Register at the dedicated AccessIndia list for discussing accessibility of mobile phones / Tabs on: http://mail.accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/mobile.accessindia_accessindia.org.in Search for old postings at: http://www.mail-archive.com/accessindia@accessindia.org.in/ To unsubscribe send a message to accessindia-requ...@accessindia.org.in with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in Disclaimer: 1. Contents of the mails, factual, or otherwise, reflect the thinking of the person sending the mail and AI in no way relates itself to its veracity; 2. AI cannot be held liable for any commission/omission based on the mails sent through this mailing list..
