TRS battles pension woes post farmer suicides in Telangana

Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao's decision to up the pension amount from Rs 200 to Rs 1000 may have earned him some brownie points, however, another clause by the head of Telangana state has put pensioners in a dilemma.

It's worth recalling that the Telangana govern abolished pensions of the existing beneficiaries that were identified by the Congress regime. Instead, ut has sought fresh applications.

Although there were a good 39.62 applicants who applied for pensions, the Telangana government gave its nod to just 24.21 lakh applications post verifications. This has become a major cause of concern for others who are genuinely in need of pension. This, people say are also pushing a few people to take the extreme step of committing suicide. According to a news report, many senior citizens died after they found their names missing in the list announced by the government. It would be interesting to see how the TRS government will handle this delicate situation as it's already come in for a lot of flak for the record number of farmer suicides in Telangana.