NK'S POST

NK SINGH The State pays its poor and underprivileged citizens a subsistence pension of Rs 300 per month. If the beneficiaries of the largesse are very old, over 80 years of age, they get Rs 500. But till now, they had to struggle to get even this paltry amount. “Often, money did not reach their bank accounts in time, causing confusion and hardship,” says Ashok Shah, principal secretary of social justice department. The main reason behind the delay was that babus used to raise 800 different bills at district level, where the money was parked, from where it would go to treasury for payments. With more than 36 lakh names in pension lists, it resulted into long delays between making paper bills, getting it signed by a drawing and disbursement officer and depositing those 800 bills in treasury. It was a logistic nightmare, with beneficiaries spread over 54,903 villages. No official had a real time picture about disbursement. “The government,” says Shah, “used to receive 6,000 comp...