TDP national president N. Chandrababu Naidu has written letters to the Andhra Pradesh Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) and the State’s Chief Secretary, requesting them to make arrangements for prompt distribution of social security pensions by employees other than the ward and village volunteers, who are barred by the Election Commission of India (ECI) from undertaking the disbursal work.
In the letters addressed to the officials on March 31 (Sunday), Mr. Naidu said that the ECI permitted other government employees to carry out pension distribution, for which a large number of employees of the Grama / Ward Sachivalayams could be immediately engaged to ensure disbursement of pensions without any delay.
Mr. Naidu pointed out that the Chief Executive Officer of the Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty (SERP) had already issued a circular in which the MPDOs and Municipal Commissioners were directed to authorise the Sachivalayam staff to carry cash from the banks to the villages.
In view of the need to disburse pensions between the 1st and 5th of every month, as was being done earlier, urgent alternative administrative arrangements should be made, he said.
Hence the appeal to the CEO and CS to make the required arrangements to distribute the pensions at the doorstep by deploying the Sachivalayam staff and other government employees, he said.