Andhra Pradesh: Pension amount likely to be increased in August

Amaravati: The State government is contemplating to hike the amount to be disbursed under YSR Pension Kanuka from present Rs 2250 to Rs 2500 from next month onwards, according to secretariat sources.

It is worth mentioning here that, the Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy promised during his election campaign that he would increase the pension amount from Rs 2000 to Rs 3000 in a phased manner and as part of that he implemented the first hike of Rs 250 in 2019-20 Financial year itself. Now, during the 2020-21 Financial year, the government is going to increase another Rs 250 per month to the pensioners.

In fact, altogether 59 lakh eligible pensioners have been getting the benefits under various categories. The different categories including old age, widow, disabled, weavers, Toddy tappers, transgender, single women, fishermen, Art pensions, dialysis pensions – Govt hospitals, dialysis pensions – affiliated hospitals and DMHO pensions. For all these pensioners in the thirteen districts, the State government has been spending around Rs 1400 Crore per month, according to the information provided by the Department of Rural Development, Government of Andhra Pradesh on its Social Security Pensions website, as on Friday.

Still, it is unclear whether the government will increase the pensions of all categories or only for certain categories.

There are about 27 lakh people getting pensions under old age category, more than 20 lakh under widow, 6.2 lakh under disabled, 1 lakh under weavers, 32,575 under Toddy tappers and 2056 under Transgender categories. Apart from them, at least 1.5 lakh getting pension benefits under single women category, 53,442 fishermen, 20,711 traditional cobblers and 31,574 Dappu artists have been benefitting.