73354 eligible pensioners under SDMC pension scheme: HC told

The South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) today told the Delhi High Court that till September last year, over 73,000 people were eligible to receive the benefit of payment under its Old Age Pension scheme.
It said that of the 73,354 eligible pensioners, it has made payments to 63,914 till September 30, last year, and the rest would also be paid as soon as they give details of ECS or RTGS.
The corporation told a bench of justices Badar Durrez Ahmed and Sanjeev Sachdeva that it was making every endeavour to make regular payments to its genuine pensioners who were since last year being paid through Electronic Clearance Service (ECS) or Real-time gross settlement (RTGS) systems.

Prior to June 30, 2014, the payments were being made through cheques, it said in an affidavit placed before the court.
It said that it is checking the details for payment of pension till December 2014 and the amount would be released through ECS as and when details are received and verification is completed.
It also told the court that it has 750 pensioners in each of its 104 wards, which came to 78,000 and apart from that there was a discretionary quota of 3800 pensioners.

"Thus SDMC can accommodate 81,800 pensioners in totality," the corporation said in its affidavit.

On whether it intends to continue with the scheme, SDMC said the matter has been placed before the standing committee of the corporation for taking a policy decision.
Earlier, the East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) had told the court that it has decided to continue its pension scheme covering over 30,600 disabled, widowed and elderly persons, subject to availability of funds.