MUKEET AKMALI
Srinagar, Apr 27: Government’s fresh instruction to treasury officers to exempt from personal appearance the pensioners who could not visit the treasuries has proved “futile”, as the pensioners complain breach of instructions on the ground.
 According to the government instructions treasury officers have been asked to depute an official to the residence of a pensioner who could not visit the treasury for verification.
 However the pensioners said: “No such system has been put in place for pensioners who are in their advanced age. They are asked to come over to treasuries for verification and fill number of forms.”
 This reporter saw number of pensioners in their advanced age waiting in queue at treasury Khanyar for their turn to fill the verification forms.
 When asked about the recent notification by the government asking the treasury officers to depute officials to the residence of the eligible pensioner for verification, they said: “Here the official refused to go to the residence of any pensioner and instead asked us those wanting their pension is not stopped, should come to the treasury for verification.”
 The pensioners said they were facing lot of inconvenience at the treasuries. “Today the officials at treasury Khanyar refused to entertain any verification forms from us stating that they have already received 10,000 forms and they first want to deal with the backlog.”
  “I fail to understand why the officials are refusing to receive our forms.  We come from different areas and here they are telling us that they won’t receive our forms,” Ghulam Muhammad, an angry pensioner said.
 Not only male pensioners, female pensioners too were told by the officials that they won’t entertain any verification forms.
 Sarah, an 80- year –old pensioner who had come from Malla Bagh was first made to wait for an hour only to be informed later by the officials that today “we won’t receive your verification form.”
 “I am illiterate. I don’t know how to fill the form. Instead of helping me, the officials here are dragging me out of room like a beggar. Is this the way they should treat us at this age. I have come here all alone. I have nobody with me,” she said.
 Complaining lack of manpower, the officials at the treasury said: “We are not able to deal with huge rush of pensioners. We have more than 10,000 pension books lying with us. We want to first clear them and then receive new applications.”

Lastupdate on : Fri, 27 Apr 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Fri, 27 Apr 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Sat, 28 Apr 2012 00:00:00 IST