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Annual income to be only criteria
The government faced the ire of not only the opposition parties but also of its ally AIMIM on the criteria fixed by the government for being eligible for Aasara pensions in Telangana.
People with annual income of Rs.1.5 lakh in rural areas and Rs.2 lakh in urban areas will be eligible for the scheme
Hyderabad: The government faced the ire of not only the opposition parties but also of its ally AIMIM on the criteria fixed by the government for being eligible for Aasara pensions in Telangana.
In its attempt to pacify the opposition parties, Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao said the government had decided to amend the criteria.
Hence forth, only the annual income would be the criteria to determine the eligibility of a person for ‘Aasara’ pension scheme.
Replying to a question in the Assembly on the issue, KCR said people with annual income of Rs 1.50 lakh in rural areas and Rs 2 lakh in urban areas would be eligible for the scheme. Claiming that this was one of the best conceived schemes, KCR said the government had earmarked Rs 4,000 crore for the scheme whereas in the undivided Andhra Pradesh the then government had allocated a mere Rs 881.32 crore.
The Aasara scheme, which was a key electoral promise of the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), envisages Rs 1,000 as old-age pension to all those who are 65 and above. The scheme provides Rs 1,500 as pension to handicapped persons with a level of disability of more than 40 per cent.
On the demand of Congress, KCR agreed to remove conditions that beneficiaries shall not be private, contract or outsourcing employees.
The Chief Minister also agreed to do away with another criterion that the beneficiaries shall not own a three-room house.
Earlier, the opposition members, including the AIMIM, alleged that many people had committed suicide as they did not find their names in the list of eligible pensioners. They were getting pension in the undivided State but the list released by the TRS government did not contain their names.
