New Delhi: In a state cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal approved a proposal by the Delhi Social Welfare Department to delink the Aadhaar from widow and old-age pension for residents of Delhi. Kejriwal claimed that this decision was taken considering the sufferance of people due to the inability of banks in linking Aadhaar to bank accounts.
"Lot of people suffering due to inability of banks to link adhar wid bank account. Today, Cabinet decided to delink adhar from widow n old age pension," Kejriwal tweeted on Tuesday evening.
A Delhi Government spokesperson said, "The department will remit at old rates all pensions stopped due to lack of Aadhaar. Further, enhanced pension will be remitted with effect from April 2018, to all beneficiaries who are getting pension at old rates so that beneficiaries are not penalized for system-related reasons. The department is responsible for implementing Old Age Assistance, commonly known as Old Age Pension for senior citizens of Delhi. This assistance is available to all senior citizens who are residents of Delhi for at least five years and having family income of Rs. 1,00,000/- or less per annum."
Lot of people suffering due to inability of banks to link adhar wid bank account. Today, Cabinet decided to delink adhar from widow n age old pension— Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) July 31, 2018
While it was decided by the Cabinet in 2016 not to insist upon Aadhaar for remittance of pension, the enhanced pension was mandated to be given only to Aadhaar-seeded accounts. Therefore, according to Delhi government figures, a total of 33,191 Old Age Pension beneficiaries and 9,799 Disability Pension beneficiaries are unable to draw their respective pensions.
"Section 7 of the Aadhaar Act, 2016 clearly stipulates that in no case beneficiaries be denied benefit for want of Aadhaar or failure of Aadhaar authentication. It further stipulates that such individuals should be offered alternate and viable means of identification and departments using Aadhaar as identifier for delivery of service/benefits to necessarily have an exception handling mechanism," Delhi government said.
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