Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, April 18:
Cracking its whip against the practice of withdrawing pension through authorisation, the State Government has directed the Finance Department not to issue pension on the basis of authorisation from May this year onward.
According to an official source, the step has been taken up to prevent instances of withdrawal of pension fraudulently or through impersonation as this trend has been on the rise.
Other related problems as a direct fallout of allowing withdrawal of pension through authorisation were also discussed.
Numerous instances of fake appointments who thereby enjoyed the salary by fake appointees and withdrawal of pension and other arrears by those who have never been appointed in Government services have emerged from time to time in Manipur and some of these incidents have been brought to the knowledge of the people through the media.
Against this background, some years back the State Government had even taken up the step to verify all the pensioners to prevent fraudulent withdrawal of pension and around 3000 people who claimed to be pensioners reportedly failed to turn up for the verification.
There are in all 24 /25 thousand pensioners in Manipur at present.
Meanwhile, along with successfully completing the preparation of the Manipur Govt Employees List (MGEL) records and datum, the Chief Secretary today issued a notification instructing the Finance Department to start and complete the computerisation process of all pensioners before June 30 and to discuss the matter with the Pensioners Association, NIC and Treasuries so that an organised system is put to place where genuine pensioners can get their pensions and the revised dearness allowances can be given automatically.
The CS also asked the Finance Commissioner to prepare a time frame for taking up these measures and communicate the same to him.
Taking serious note over drawing pensions of those pensioners who have already expired, the Chief Secretary has also instructed for taking up necessary measures to weed out this evil practice.
To ensure that people do not complain later on in connection with steps to be taken up, the Chief Secretary made it clear to the Finance Commissioner that additional manpower and resources can be arranged in consultation with the AC, if necessary.
As to the practice of drawing pension on authorisation basis, the Chief Secretary instructed that the Finance Department should immediately issue instruction that no pension would be issued on authorisation basis from the month of May, 2007.