Agartala: More than 80,000 beneficiaries of social pension schemes sponsored jointly by the Tripura and the Union government have been put on hold owing to technical issues pertaining to registration on the PFMS portal, state social welfare minister Santana Chakma said on Wednesday.
The Public Fund Management System (PFMS) is an advanced transaction-based system used by the government to distribute benefits among the identified groups directly.
“The PFMS registration of a section of beneficiaries is still pending. But, we have been working hard to make sure that the registration is completed by this month. Before Durga Puja, all the beneficiaries will have their dues cleared,” the social welfare minister said.
As per the minister, the delay was due to various factors, including non-updated KYCs and changes in the beneficiaries’ bank IFSC codes. The minister said that the ICDS officers have been directed to get the corrected bank details with updated information for the PFMS portal.
“Since the pension could not be deposited in time, many people have started to spread rumours about the social pension schemes. There is nothing to worry about, all of them will get their money,” the minister stated.
Sharing a break-up of the beneficiaries, Chakma said, “The total number of people receiving pension under central scheme stands at 1.41 lakh. We failed to provide pensions to 16,709 beneficiaries among them. In state schemes, we have 2.31 lakh beneficiaries and 62,487 people did not receive pensions since June this year. The total outstanding pension amount is around Rs 50 crore.”
The minister also hoped that introduction of PFMS will bring more transparency to the system as the government will be able to track the beneficiaries.
Before PFMS, Tripura used to carry out such transactions through BMS (Beneficiary Management System).
The beneficiaries get Rs 1,000 as social pension, which is expected to increase to Rs 2,000 before Durga Puja.
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