Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala government on Thursday decided to cancel the social security pensions that were wrongly given to people who were not eligible to receive them.

In a circular, the state Finance Department ordered the recovery of money already drawn by ineligible persons and directed that an additional 18 per cent of that amount be charged as interest.

It also decided to take departmental-level action against officials who facilitated ineligible persons in obtaining social security pensions.

In the circular, the Finance Department directed the Directors of Panchayats and Municipalities to take steps to strictly implement the government’s decision.

The government took the decision after an inspection recently revealed that nearly 1,500 government employees, including gazetted officers and college professors in Kerala, were fraudulently receiving social security pensions.

The fraud was detected during an inspection conducted by the Information Kerala Mission, which aims to computerise and network local self-government institutions in Kerala, following instructions from the state Finance Minister K N Balagopal.

The decision also follows an audit by the state’s Finance Department, which targeted beneficiaries in a municipality and discovered that owners of BMW cars and residents of air-conditioned homes were listed as recipients of social security pensions.

The Kerala government has established strict eligibility criteria for various welfare pension schemes to ensure they benefit only the genuinely deserving.

The general criteria for availing of such pensions include an annual family income below Rs 1 lakh and not owning luxury assets such as high-capacity vehicles or large, modern homes.

People receiving multiple pensions, paying income tax, or residing in care homes are also ineligible under the scheme’s guidelines.

Balagopal has said that stringent action would be taken against those committing fraud to obtain social security pensions meant for the poor. 

 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Republic and is published from a syndicated feed.)