Banks remain clueless; defence pensioners sulkDefence pensioners hoping to get arrears of their dearness allowance (DA) with reference to the revised consolidated pension find themselves in a peculiar fix.Thanks to the unavailability of booklets made available by the Ministry of Defence with banks in the city, the defence pensioners are yet to receive arrears since the banks had little idea of how to go about the re-fixation process.One defence pensioner with Bank of Maharashtra, Yerwada branch R Nambiar complained that when he had enquired from the bank manager, he had confirmed that he had received the Government of India, Ministry of Defence booklet under their head-office letter-head dated December 30, 1998. When asked about further action after receipt of the letter, he indicated that all bank managers intend to approach their head office (Lokmangal), Shivajinagar with a request to advise the Pension Link office located at Deccan Gymkhana, to make available the arrears of Dearness Allowance (DA) to be paid with reference to the Revised Consolidated Pension since the DA was revised at least five times from January 1, 1996 till date. For this purpose, the revised consolidated pension of affected pensioners will be furnished to Pension Link office by the respective branches.The branch manager also explained that more than 2000 pensioners were dependent on the Yerawada branch and hence it would take some time to complete the work related to fixing the revised pension and to make payment on account of arrears, which means the pensioners depended on Bank of Maharashtra branches may get benefits granted by government letter dated July 14, 1998 by February 15, 1999.
