AAP flayed over pending pension applications

Anshita Mehra

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New Delhi, February 21

Leader of the Opposition Ramvir Singh Bidhuri criticised the AAP government for its handling of pension applications for the elderly in the Delhi Assembly session on Wednesday. Bidhuri accused Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal of reneging on the party’s promise to accept 1,000 new pension applications from each Assembly constituency annually.

He claimed that the halt in approving new applications since 2018 had resulted in a backlog of nearly 5 lakh pending cases, leaving countless elderly residents of Delhi in a state of distress.

Emphasising the plight of people residing in unauthorised colonies, resettlement areas, slums and villages, he asserted that many of these elderly residents are destitute and are solely dependent on government assistance for survival.

It is claimed that many elderly citizens often struggle to meet even their basic needs such as food and healthcare due to a lack of financial resources.

He lamented the bureaucratic hurdles faced by pension applicants, who are often left without satisfactory explanations for the delay in processing their requests.

He stressed the urgent need to alleviate the suffering of Delhi’s elderly population by expediting the pension approval process. He also called for the resolution of pending cases dating back to seven years. “In line with the Chief Minister’s purported commitment of accepting 1,000 applications from every segment annually, the government should accept 7,000 applications from each Assembly constituency,” he added.