5 lakh 100-plus aged drawing pensions, PM Narendra Modi's 'Jeevan Pranaam' project reveals

NEW DELHI: Hectic preparations in the government for implementing Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Jeevan Pranaam’ project led to an intriguing revelation recently: There are nearly 5 lakh pensioners above 100 years, drawing pensions via banks, leading to disbelief among top government officials and directions for validating the data on a priority.

As per the 2011 census, there are only 6.05 lakh persons in India above 100 years. A top government official told ETthat it was impossible that a vast majority of them could be former government employees, as the banks’ data suggests. “At a meeting a couple of months ago, one of the secretaries remarked that it would be a Guinness world record if India actually had 5 lakh 100-plus aged pensioners,” the official said.

Minutes of a meeting held on June 3 on the Jeevan Pranaam project, accessed byET, still describe it as a major discrepancy. “It was once again pointed out that there were a large number of glaring discrepancies in banks’ data, including the number of pensioners above the age of 100 years and a large number of duplicate records in the banks’ databases.

The Department of Financial Services has once again been asked to instruct banks to get their data cleaned on priority,” the minutes say. The meeting was chaired by secretary, Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances, Alok Rawat.

DFS secretary Hasmukh Adhia was also present.

The numbers are now coming down drastically after banks have launched a sustained drive on DFS instructions and detected “uncorrected records,” an official clarified. “One bank has now reported only 230 centenary pensioners. Other banks now have 700, 543 and 1,110 centenarian pensioners. The new data is being collated afresh,” the official said.

Banks, however, may have lot to answer given that centenary-old pensioners get 100% additional pension and there could be cases of pensions disbursed to persons for long. In a reply to Parliament in May, MHA had admitted a similar irregularity in the freedom fighters pension scheme.

MHA had revealed that a verification exercise revealed that public sector banks had disbursed pension to more than 3,000 dead freedom fighters for many years after their death.