LIC's unique mass
pension scheme launched
Sandesh Prabhudesai
3 October 2001
The Life Insurance Corporation has entered
into a new kind of social security cover at mass level, thanks
to the 'freedom from hunger' scheme launched by Goa government
- the first of its kind in the country.
The unique concept provides financial security
in the form of a monthly pension of Rs 500 to any senior citizen,
disabled person or non-functional workman of the state, who
has no income source of his own.
The pension amount will rise at the rate
of five per cent per annum, taking into account the increasing
price index. The disbursement will begin from January.
Launching it as Dayanand Social Security
Scheme on Gandhi Jayanti Day, LIC chairman G N Bajpai announced
that the scheme would be now also extended to other states
of India, provided they agree with the modus operandi.
"I buy the pension from the LIC", states
chief minister Manohar Parrikar, the architect of the scheme.
He plans to create a corpus of around Rs 100 crore, by making
annual provision of only Rs 20 crore each in the budget for
the first five years.
The tiny state ultimately plans to cover
around 25,000 persons, who will be paid life-time pension,
to be extended to the surviving wife or husband or minor children
after death of the beneficiary.
No matter the senior citizen's children earn
or not, anybody crossing 60 years could avail the scheme if
he has no direct source of income 'of his own'. Parrikar has
also included destitutes or deserted women/widow above 18
years or a spinster above 50 years into it.
The scheme is also extended to workmen like
toddy tappers, coconut pluckers, coolies, traditional fishermen,
agricultural labour, drivers/conductors/cleaners of rikshaw,
taxi, motorcycle taxi, truck or public transport buses, the
minute they stop earning their livelihood through their profession,
due to disability or age factor.
In case of accidental deaths, the LIC will
also pay Rs 30,000 to the family, besides the pension, provided
the beneficiaries register themselves by paying Rs 500. The
registration fee for the general pension scheme is fixed at
Rs 100.
As this scheme covers almost every needy
and disabled person in the state, Parrikar has amalgamated
all the existing state schemes into it, including widow pension,
old age pension and Dayanand Niradhar Madat Yojana.
"I am also trying to pursue the centre to
bring central schemes of similar nature under it", states
the chief minister.
The LIC however plans to review the success
of the Goa scheme, before it proposes to extend the scheme
to other states in the country.
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