 "Taskforce appointed to amend Universal Pension norms")
It also recommended a slight increase in pensions from the present Central allocation of Rs 200 for aged persons to Rs 300 and asked for an increase upto Rs 500 in the 12th Five year plan period.
Planning Commission member Mihir Shah who headed the task force said that the increase in pension amount would cost the Government Rs 55,496 crore per year for three different pension schemes meant for aged, disabled and widows.
The Government spends Rs 14,369 crore each year now. The total financial implication for the five year plan period would be Rs 1,31,626 crore, he said.
The task force was set up after a movement began under Aruna Roy and activist Baba Adhav two years ago demanding universal pension as a right for all. They were demanding a minimum pension of Rs 2,000 per aged person.
Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh accepted the recommendations of the task force which if approved by the Union Cabinet are to be incorporated in the National Social Assistance Programme which is implemented by his ministry.
The scheme addresses pension for the aged, the disabled and widows. One of the recommendations of the task force is also to include widows from the age of 18 years under the pension scheme.
The scheme is to be linked to the Direct Cash Transfer scheme as per the task force recommendations. The pensions are invariably delayed as the transfers are made by the finance ministry to the state finance departments rather than directly to the social welfare departments, Ramesh said..The task force has recommended that this was because it was not a centrally sponsored scheme and was only a centrally assisted scheme. Hence the task force wanted it to be made centrally sponsored so that funds go directly from ministry to the rural or social development department of the states.
The Pension Parishad led by Aruna Roy and Baba Adhav said that what the Government offered was unacceptable and have threatened to continue their protests in Delhi demanding Rs 2000 for all aged.
According to calculations made by this group, payment of Rs 1000 by the Centre as pension just for the aged would cost it Rs 1,34,666 crore per year. This is close to what the Government intends to spend for the aged, the widows and disabled put together in the next five years.
Economist Jayati Ghosh called the recommendations of the task force shameful and a slap on the face of the poor. The Government does not think twice when they pass over tax benefit of Rs 15,000 crore to real estate companies all in incentives and exemptions. But when it wants to pay pension to the poorest of the poor, it has no funds and it needs five years to give even Rs 500, she said.
If they see Rs 300 as adequate pension, then how can they expect the same people to afford to pay Rs 70 per litre of petrol? Every litre feeds into the price of the essentials. The Government wants global price of diesel but has only Rs 300 for pension for the aged in this country. What does one make of this, Ghosh asked.
The least the task force could have done was to take the demand for a higher pension to the Cabinet and left it for the Government to decide. But the task force itself has ruled out a minimum pension of Rs 2000 for the aged, said Ghosh who is also part of the Pension parishad, Jairam Ramesh said that it was the responsibility of States to give pensions, and many states were giving much higher pensions than what the Centre was offering as its share.
But majority of states especially the socially and economically backward ones were barely giving funds matching with the Rs 200 that the ministry gave, he said.
Subrat Das executive director of the Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability said that the delay in pension payments was not because it was not a centrally sponsored scheme. He said that the task force was ill advised in seeking to turn the pension scheme into a centrally sponsored scheme. He said that centrally sponsored schemes suffer from lack of transparency by virtue of funds not passing through the state treasuries and hence not coming under the purview of CAG.