New Income Limit for Old Age Pension

• 19 Mar 2022

Why in News

• On March 17, 2022, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar said in a press conference in Chandigarh that a new income limit would be fixed for old age pensions in the state.

Key Points

• The Chief Minister said that the Haryana government has taken this decision to prevent malpractices in government schemes and to weed out the ineligible.
• Recently, in the investigation of PPP (Family Identity Card), 18 thousand widow women have been found in the state, who have remarried, but are also taking widow pension.
• To get the benefit of old age pension, the income limit in the year 2011 was 50 thousand rupees. In the year 2012, this income limit was increased to Rs 2 lakh. Since then, there has been no change in the income limit of old age pension.
• In order to bring transparency in pension, the state government has sent the data of persons aged 57 to 60 years in the field for verification through family identity card. After verification, their pension will start automatically on attaining the age of 60 years.
• The birth and death registration process has been digitized and linked to Parivar Pehchan Patra, so that the information of family members is updated automatically.
• The Chief Minister said that in the fifth phase, data of about 30.06 lakh families have been sent for verification. Till now the number of verified families below Rs 1.80 lakh is 13 lakh 53 thousand. It is estimated that the number of such families will be around 20 lakhs. Out of the verified households, the number of scheduled caste families is 31 percent and the number of families belonging to backward classes is 37 percent.