Free insurance for pensioners from next fiscal: Drabu

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, October 26

In a significant decision, Minister for Finance and Labour and Employment Haseeb Drabu today announced that the pensioners of the J&K Government would get free insurance cover from next year.

“Pensioners are a nation’s treasure. They are the repository of our tradition and culture. Keeping in view their contributions and hardships, we have decided that the government will provide them free insurance cover from the next fiscal,” Drabu added.

Drabu was speaking during a function at Sheikh-ul-Alam Hall in Budgam, where hundreds of members of the J&K Pensioners’ Welfare Association were present. Drabu said the situation in the last three decades had taken a toll on the society, which had lost the sense of eldership. “Our cultural values and tradition have got eroded due to the situation in the last three decades. The society has changed enormously, which also impacts the way our senior citizens are treated in their day-to-day lives,” he said.

Drabu said the new insurance scheme would cover all the pensioners of the state. “Our government’s endeavour is that all senior citizens should get insurance cover, whether they have been state government employees or not and we will hopefully move towards that end in the coming years,” he said.

Earlier, the pensioners put forth a list of issues faced by them before the Finance Minister and sought his intervention in getting them addressed. A few of the issues are removal in anomalies in the SRO 94, enhancement of medical allowances and decreasing commutation from 15 to 12 years.