Rajasthan’s ‘living dead’ pensioners travel to Delhi to highlight their plight | India News – Times of India

NEW DELHI: Jhamku Devi, 69, travelled 565km from her native village in Rajasthan’s Sadaran to Delhi for an event Tuesday that she hoped would settle the “dispute” over whether she was living or dead.
It’s been 21 months since her status in govt records inexplicably changed to “deceased”, cutting her off the list of beneficiaries of old-age pension. She continues to subsist on a meagre income rearing goats.
Before making the trip to Delhi, the widow had met govt officials in Rajasthan, pleaded with them, and produced papers to prove she was Jhamku Devi in flesh and blood. Nothing worked.
Hers is one of many instances in Rajasthan of people being denied pension because of erroneous entries in survival records.
Ajmer resident Kanchan Devi, 40, hasn’t received her widow pension for 30 months. “I am supposed to be dead on paper. Panchayat Samiti officials suggested that I open a new pension account, in which case I would forfeit my arrears. I declined,” she said.
Gudia, 22, from Mohalla Narsinghpura in Beawar was shocked when her disability pension was abruptly stopped in Jan 2023 without prior notice. She learnt that her address had been changed in the records to “out of state” although she remains a resident of Rajasthan.
Her plight worsened when repeated Aadhaar verification attempts to reinstate her name in the pension records failed because of her disability. “My fingerprints and pupils couldn’t be registered. This led to my Aadhaar being deactivated in mid-2024,” said Gudiya, who lives with her mother.
Keli Devi from Biyakheda in Beawer stopped receiving pension after an e-Mitra operator mistakenly linked her Pension Payment Order to another woman’s account. She died this March awaiting rectification of the records.
The Delhi event where these stories were highlighted was organised by Pension Parishad and Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) to highlight how “digital exclusion” impacts lakhs of pensioners across India, based on cases in Rajasthan collated by various organisations. The Rajasthan Minimum Guaranteed Income Act, 2023, entitles all elderly, disabled or widowed women to a minimum pension of Rs 1,000 a month, with an annual increment of 15%.
Nikhil Dey of Pension Parishad and MKSS said, “Govt has effectively made Aadhaar compulsory despite claiming it wouldn’t be mandatory, leading to systemic failures that alienate those most in need of support. In Rajasthan, over 1 crore pension beneficiaries face challenges, with around 13 lakh pensions being cancelled annually, often due to delays or data mismatches.”
Activist-lawyer Prashant Bhushan said responsible officials needed to be penalised and pensions restored immediately for those that were wrongly excluded. He said exclusion caused by glitches in Aadhaar verification was a violation of Supreme Court orders.