No Aadhaar, Sonepat man without disability pension for months
ROHTAK : In a world where giving a unique identity to each citizen remains the avowed mission of the establishment, those unable to get the Aadhaar card themselves — even for reasons not under their control — are paying a heavy price.
Consider this: Vijay Dhamija, 26, a resident of Ganaur block, in Sonepat, who cannot get an Aadhaar card made as he has no fingers, has not received his disability pension for the past seven months.
Why? Because, the authorities have made it mandatory for him to provide his Aadhaar card to get the benefit of ₹1,800 a month.
He has a disability of above 60% and his pension had started once he turned 18.
“I have been to local and district-level Aadhaar Kendras but there is no facility for disabled people like me. I even went to the E-disha Kendra in Sonepat but they too did not help. Instead, all these trips took a toll on my health and I suffered from fever, body pains and much worse illnesses. This experience has been terrible,” Dhamija said.
“This government has been troubling the disabled by making Aadhaar card mandatory. I filed a complaint at the CM Window in December. Officials, however, have given me a false assurances that they will visit and help me. No one has checked on me,” he added.
Vijay’s sister Prabha, 25, also disabled, said their family income was low and not getting Vijay’s pension had hit their budget.
“We took him to an E-disha Kendra in Sonepat, but they said their machine was not working. We have even stopped getting ration due to the non-availability of the Aadhaar card,” she said.
Sonepat deputy commissioner KM Pandurang said the case was not in his knowledge.
“If he has not got pension due to no Aadhaar then it is wrong. There is a provision for disabled people that pension has to be credited even if they don’t have the Aadhaar card. We will conduct an inquiry and resolve the issue soon, taking appropriate action,” he said.
In the recent past, several incidents have been reported where people have been denied basic services due to the non-availability of Aadhaar card.
In Sonepat, again, a Kargil martyr’s widow had died in December 2017, when a private hospital refused to admit her without depositing her Aadhaar card.
The state government had recently issued instructions to hospitals to not deny medical care to anyone without an Aadhaar.