Lakhs of Punjab government pensioners, including former legislators, woke up to good news on Thursday. Their long-delayed pension for the month of April has been credited to their accounts in a leading public sector bank.
These pensioners, around 2.5 lakh in number, had not received the pension for April, leading to severe criticism of the Aam Aadmi Party government. The state has 4.5 lakh pensioners of which 2.5 lakh pensioners have their accounts in one bank, and the remaining in another public sector bank. Their monthly pension outgo from the state government treasury is around Rs 1,872 crore.
Amarjit Singh Bhatia, a pensioner from Kharar, told The Tribune that his pension was credited in the early hours of Thursday. “It comes as a big relief for lakhs of state government pensioners, whose only source of income is this,” he said.
The issue of delay in pensions was resolved on Wednesday after a meeting was held between senior government officials and representatives of the bank. The bank reportedly sought time to switch the pension accounts to the government’s Pension Seva Portal, a digital platform to manage pension details and submission of life certificates.
Other banks have shifted to the digital platform, but 70,000 of the 2.5 lakh pensioners in one bank have yet to be digitally verified, delaying the switch to the Pension Seva Portal for this bank, according to top officials of the state government’s finance department.
