Gangtok, 18th Feb (IPR): In a press briefing held at Samaj Kalyan Bhavan in Lumsey today, Secretary, Social Justice and Welfare Department, Shri Tshewang Gyachho, elaborated on various deliberations undertaken by the department in order to resolve issues with regard to the delay and non-receipt of Old Age Pension and other pension benefits under National Social Assistance Programme.
Secretary, Shri Tshewang Gyachho, informed that the department had held a coordination meeting with bankers, postmasters and District Level Officials of the department from North and East districts earlier today wherein discussions were held to understand the complaints and grievances of the public regarding the distribution of various pensions.
He said that after much deliberation, it was learned that the delay was mostly caused due to inactive and dormant accounts of some beneficiaries and issues regarding the IFSC codes and variations in account number digits, allowing to the lack of information at the grass-root level.
To resolve these issues at the earliest, the department has assigned Guardian Inspectors and Guardian Officers to each GPU who will be scrutinizing the cases of pending pensions of the beneficiaries and resolve the issues in coordination with the Panchayats, BDOs, SDMs, DCs, ADCs and other concerned officials.
Stressing on the State government’s consistent efforts in providing a basic level of financial support to the beneficiaries, he emphasized that the department aims at achieving error-free distribution of social pension schemes in a period of 90 days.
Shri Gyachho further urged the BDOs, Panchayats and the Guardian Inspectors and Officers to proactively participate in the process of resolving the issues of the beneficiaries.
