Nellore residents protest cancellation of pensions

Nellore: Ruling party leaders in the district are in dire straits due to cancellation of welfare pensions. The administration has cancelled around 12,000 pensions claiming that they were ineligible and now ruling party leaders were facing protests and annoyance from the local people. The state government has also directed the sachivalayam officers to serve notices to those people, who were having their own lands or buildings and power consumption exceeds 300 units per month. Though these rules framed in 2019, now, they are being implemented from January 1.

Further, the District Collector KVN Chakradhar Babu said the administration has served notices to 12,000 people, who were ineligible to get pensions. He conducted a review with the officials in the city on Monday and said those eligible persons would be provided pension and asked the officials to upload fresh requests before January 5. He asked the staff to accept petitions from the ineligible pensioners and act as per rules. He said they were distributing Rs 80 crore to around 3 lakh pensioners every month. He said farmers should be provided seeds at 80 per cent of subsidy. He said Rs 2.5 crore have been released to the Panchayat Raj department for construction of YSR Village Clinics and asked the officials to start construction works immediately. Meanwhile, city legislator Dr P Anil Kumar Yadav directed the officials to verify pensions of 3,000 cancelled in the city limits. He conducted an emergency meeting at a wedding mall with the staff members of ward sachivalayam offices in the city on Monday after local population started agitations on cancelling welfare pensions.

He directed the officials to reconsider the cases if they are eligible. He collected the date of cancelled pensions in all 28 divisions in the city limits and reviewed with the staff members.

Further, TDP media coordinator Jaladanki Sudhakar said the number of people deleted from the pensioners' list was 5,000, rather than 3,000. Interacting with the media, he said elderly, disabled, widows and single women have been facing financial troubles due to cancellation of pensions. He alleged that majority TDP sympathisers are being targeted cancelling welfare pensions of them.