TT Impact: Stop issuing recovery notices to welfare beneficiaries, Chief Secretary tells officials

CS A Santhi Kumari on Sunday directed all Secretariat departments and district Collectors not to initiate any steps for issuing notices or recovering amounts from beneficiaries, who have been included in various welfare schemes

Hyderabad: Following a report published in these columns on Saturday on how officials had issued recovery notices to Aasara pensioners, including an 80-year-old woman, to return amounts ranging from Rs.1 lakh to Rs.2 lakh that they had received as pension, Chief Secretary A Santhi Kumari on Sunday directed all Secretariat departments and district Collectors not to initiate any steps for issuing notices or recovering amounts from beneficiaries, who have been included in various welfare schemes.

The Chief Secretary said it had come to the government’s notice that several instances occurred where beneficiaries, who were ineligible were included for grant of benefits under various schemes. The Government has undertaken widespread consultations to streamline these welfare schemes to ensure better and more efficient targeting of eligible beneficiaries, she said.

The issues identified and potential solutions were likely to be discussed during the forthcoming budget session. The government would soon issue clear guidelines aimed at ensuring better targeting of welfare scheme benefits and establishing procedures for the recovery (in cases and schemes deemed necessary) of undue benefits received by clearly ineligible persons, she said.Until such guidelines were issued, all Secretariat departments and district Collectors were not to initiate any steps for issuing notices or recovering amounts from beneficiaries, the Chief Secretary said.

Telangana Today had reported on how recovery notices were issued to 200 Aasara pensioners, who got pensions during the previous BRS regime, in Kothagudem district alone. Those served notices by the officials were worried over the pension recovery and how they could pay such huge amounts. The report had specifically mentioned the instance of an 80-year-old widow, Dasari Mallamma of Babu Camp area in Kothagudem, who was served notice by the municipal staff on July 9 asking her to deposit Rs 1.72 lakh within a week in the municipal office, with a warning that legal action would be initiated against her in case she failed to do so. The notice was served following the orders dated June 27 from the DRDA project director.

The incident had triggered a furore over the government’s move, with several persons, including BRS working president KT Rama Rao decrying the attempt to recover money even from an 80-year-old widow. It was disheartening for the people of the State who pinned hopes on the assurances made by the Congress Party to scale up the benefits under the welfare initiatives to find themselves at the receiving end, he said, demanding the government to restrain from such moves.