Haryanas plans to become the first state in the country to electronically transfer pension across its 21 districts has hit a roadblock due to inadequate banking infrastructure. The Haryana government had earlier claimed that it was the first state in the country to have opened bank accounts for more than two million beneficiaries under the Social Security Schemes for electronic transfer of pension. However,it seems to have faltered in the very first step of implementing this. After CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda recently reviewed the progress made under the scheme and noted with concern that the state consisted of grossly inadequate infrastructure deployed by the banks and their appointed Business Correspondents Agents (BCAs),the state government halted progress on it until adequate banking infrastructure is created. It has now planned to allot fresh funds through the bank accounts after the proposed BCA centres are verified and notified by the department. As a result of this setback,Haryanas rural areas will continue to manually distribute its employees pension through sarpanch es in rural areas and through municipal bodies in urban areas for the time being. In rural areas,the distribution of pension under various social security schemes will be done manually by the sarpanch in collaboration either with the gram sachiv ,the patwari ,the area panch or the patti lambardar, said a senior official in the state government. The system of distribution through banks will be limited to some urban areas,which comprise of less than 70 percent of the total number of beneficiaries. The electronic system of distribution of pension was initiated to curb the irregularities in the manual distribution system,after the state government recieved hundreds of complaints regarding the latter.
