Aasara pensions: 5,650 persons including government pensioners receiving double pensions
Dasari Mallamma of Kothagudem has been receiving a pension of ₹24,073 as a dependent apart from Aasara pension. She was sent a recovery notice that created a buzz in the media
The State government has reportedly found irregularities in the ‘Aasara’ pension scheme with 5,650 pensioners, including some retired government employees, receiving double pensions in violation of rules and causing a dent to the exchequer.
Sources say that the financial mismanagement of the welfare pension scheme has severely impacted the State’s coffers. In Khammam district, officials estimate a misuse of ₹2.50 crore due to these unauthorized payments. On a State-wide level, the misappropriation amounts to a substantial sum.
One particularly notable case involves an 80-year-old woman, Dasari Mallamma, from Kothagudem district, who has been in the news with the government sending a recovery notice to her. On Saturday, Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) working president K. T. Rama Rao, in a post on the social media platform ‘X’, termed the issuance of the notice of recovery to Mallamma as inhuman.
However, according to sources Mallamma’s daughter, Dasari Rajeshwari, who worked as an Auxiliary Nurse Midwife (ANM) in Danthukuru, died in 2010. Mallamma has been receiving a pension of ₹24,073 as a dependent since her daughter was unmarried, and a recent survey found she was also receiving an Aasara pension. Consequently, her Aasara pension has been stopped since June.
SERP audit
A recent audit by the Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty (SERP) discovered that some 5,650 government employees across Telangana were receiving Aasara pensions in addition to their pension on retirement. Of these, 3,824 beneficiaries have died, but 1,826 continue to receive both pensions. The government has stopped the Aasara pensions for these individuals as of June 2024. In Khammam and Bhadradri Kothagudem districts alone, 427 individuals were found to be illegally receiving double pensions.
The Congress government, led by A. Revanth Reddy, has renamed the Aasara pensions as ‘Cheyutha‘ pensions and is serious about checking the irregularities. The mismanagement under the previous government has led to widespread misuse of public funds, as revealed by last month’s inspections, officials explained.
Rythu Bandhu misuse
The State government has recently found that around ₹25,672 crore were wrongly paid out under the ‘Rythu Bandhu’ scheme, they were paid to ineligible individuals such as real estate traders and for lands that were already acquired for infrastructure projects like national highways and roads. Given these developments, the government is trying to rectify these issues and ensure that public money is used appropriately to support those genuinely in need, the sources said.
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