Woman separated from husband to get `1,000 per month; tahsildars to verify information Single women with income below `2L to get pension

should not be covered under any other social security pension scheme.

Under this scheme, the beneficiaries will get `1,000 per month. In their guidelines, the government said ‘single women’ referred to married women above the age of 18 who had been separated from their husbands or whose husbands had deserted them. Also, the separation period needed to be more than one year among unmarried single women who were above 30 years of age in rural areas and above 35 years of age in urban areas.

For those separation periods where documents were not available, these details could be ascertained by the local tahsildar after due inquiries.

The beneficiaries so identified, ought to belong to a household with annual income of less than `1.5 lakh in rural areas and `2 lakhs in urban areas.

Also, the beneficiary should not be covered under any other social security pension scheme or should not be a pensioner under any public or private sector organisation. Women who belong to these categories but are above 65 years of age, shall be covered under the old-age pension Aasara scheme. In case the beneficiary remarries or gets permanent employment or economic stability after the sanction of financial assistance, the benefit shall be discontinued after ascertaining the status. This shall be done every three months by Mandal Parishad Development Officers (MPDOs) in rural areas, Municipal commissioners in urban local bodies, Deputy Commissioners in GHMC other than Hyderabad district and tahsildars in Hyderabad district.

The panchayat secretary in the rural areas, bill collector in urban local bodies and village revenue officer in GHMC area shall receive applications and shall be entrusted with the task of verifying the applications. Gram sabha will be conducted by the tahsildar for identification of the eligible beneficiaries, in GHMC area, ward sabha will be conducted in the slums by the tahasidars/ deputy collectors with the help of municipal staff.

In other urban local bodies municipal commissioners will conduct the ward sabha. In GHMC limits of Hyderabad, Rangareddy, Sangareddy and MedchalMalkajgiri districts, the district collectors shall take the assistance of municipal authorities for identification of beneficiaries.

The state government said 10 per cent ‘super checks’ shall be conducted by the special officers appointed by the district collector and any wrongful identification and certification of beneficiaries shall bring about severe disciplinary action against the violators .