This is an archive article published on August 29, 2021
In eight days, 21 families who lost their earning member to Covid-19 get govt pension
"Two days ago, we made the Sanjay Gandhi Niradhar Yojana applicable to 21 women who lost their husbands to Covid-19. Under the scheme, these families will get a monthly pension of Rs 1,200," Pimpri-Chinchwad tehsildar Geeta Gaikwad said.
Gaikwad said a list of those who died from Covid-19 was procured from the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation. (Express Photo by Manoj More)
As many as 21 women who lost their husbands, the only earning member of their family, to Covid-19 have received a monthly pension of Rs 1,200 from the Pimpri-Chinchwad administration. Over a period of eight days, the 21 families were located, information was verified if they were eligible for pension and they were helped with the documentation needed to avail the scheme.
“Two days ago, we made the Sanjay Gandhi Niradhar Yojana applicable to 21 women who lost their husbands to Covid-19. Under the scheme, these families will get a monthly pension of Rs 1,200,” Pimpri-Chinchwad tehsildar Geeta Gaikwad told The Indian Express on Sunday.
Gaikwad said a list of those who died from Covid-19 was procured from the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation. “In the first phase, we identified 85 families, of which we immediately reached out to 21. Our officials went to the doorstep of the families and helped them get income and domicile certificates, which makes them eligible for the pension scheme,” she said.
The entire process, Gaikwad said, was completed in barely eight days. “Normally it takes six months. But we managed to complete the process in eight days and even distributed the certificates to the beneficiaries,” she said.
District Collector Rajesh Deshmukh, who handed over the certificates to the beneficiaries, said, “We cannot fully ease the pain that a family has suffered due to the loss of an earning member. We are making all efforts to take the government schemes to families who have faced such tragedies. We have launched a campaign to identify the families and bring them the benefits of the scheme as early as possible.”
Gaikwad said the Sanjay Gandhi Niradhar Yojana is applicable to both men and women. “If in any family, suppose a woman is the earning member and she died due to Covid-19, such families also become eligible. It is not necessary that the scheme is applicable on the death of men. It is applicable on the death of an earning member of the family,” she said.
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Gaikwad said the scheme is even applicable to those who do not fall under the poor income bracket. “They should fit into the criteria. The family should not have any sources of income. Such families might be poor or well-to-do,” she said.
The tehsildar said families who have lost their earning members should come forward. “We will help them to pension,” she said.
Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.
Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives.
Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees.
During Covid, over 50 doctors were asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa.
Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.
Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More
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