The Delhi lokayukta, Justice Manmohan Sarin, has pulled up the South Delhi municipal corporation (SDMC) for violating several norms in the issuance of social welfare pension. In an inquiry the lokayukta found that a municipal councilor cheated the beneficiaries in payments, but more importantly, the beneficiaries were handpicked by him – though he does not have the power to do so.

In its order last month, the lokayukta also noted that the SDMC had ignored the Delhi Lt Governor’s recommendation of making payments through the electronic clearing system (ECS), and pension was being distributed physically – through a sanitary inspector.

Justice Manmohan Sarin started the probe into these malpractices on the basis of a report in the Dainik Jagran newspaper on October 22, 2009 about how a certain municipal councilor [not named in the lokayukta order] was extracting money from widows and handicapped persons. This man had a simple scheme: if you want pension, you have to subscribe to a ‘religious’ magazine, which happened to be run by he himself. Thus, one you pay Rs 1,100 for an annual subscription and show the receipt, the councilor would issue the beneficiaries pension card numbers, which they could use to collect the pension cheque.

The lokayukta conducted inquiry proceedings, and charged the councilor. The ombudsman then made a recommendation that pension be paid after inspecting whether the applicants were eligible or not.

The matter was put before the Lt Governor, who accepted the recommendations, and directed the municipal corporation of Delhi (MCD, which was later trifurcated) to distribute pension funds through ECS. The Lt Governor also highlighted the need for increased scrutiny of applicants to figure out whether they are genuine or not.

However, the corporation, in an attempt to control of the fund outflow, put the Lt Governor’s orders aside, and chose to hand over the pension money via physical cheques. The reason it gave was that this way you can physically verify the genuineness of the beneficiary and find out if the beneficiary was living in the same ward or not. This goes counter to the previous system, in which the pensioners had to submit a certificate of existence periodically to the bank, and which worked successfully.

The corporation also suggested that once a councilor was elected, he or she would have the power to name pensioners. However, this would result in the discontinuity of pension to eligible pensioners, each time a councilor was changed.

An exasperated lokayukta commented in an order of July 17, 2013, “Payment of pension to old age, widows, helpless, poor and destitute persons is a welfare measure of the state and needs to be implemented selflessly, honestly with total integrity. The requirement is total commitment to the welfare of the people by successful implementation of this welfare measure. … let our councilors also display selflessness and integrity in their zeal to serve the public and implement this welfare measure.”

The lokayukta has once again recommended the Lt Governor, as administrator, to immediately correct the current impasse by passing directions to the SDMC.