Jharkhand: Elderly man deprived of pension after being declared dead in files in Bokaro

The 70-year-old Khedan Ghansi is now continuously making rounds of the block office to prove himself alive, but to no avail.

Bokaro: In a shocking case of official apathy and negligence, an alive elderly man in Bokaro district of Jharkhand has been declared “dead” by the authorities on the official records thereby depriving him of the pension he was entitled to, sources said on Saturday. It is learnt that the victim Khedan Ghansi, 70, a resident of Bagda village of Kasmar block of Bokaro district was declared dead on the official records of the concerned department.

After being declared dead in the government records, 70-year-old Khedan Ghansi is now continuously making rounds of the block office to prove himself alive, sources said. But Ghansi has not been able to prove himself alive so far with the pension still not restored in his favour, he said. Ghansi said he was regularly getting old age pension from the government scheme for the last several years.

However, in Sept. last year, his pension stopped all of a sudden. After the pension was stopped, he went to the block office and inquired about it. What shocked him was that in the official records he has been declared dead. It has been more than eight months Ghansi has been visiting the office to get the pension restored, but to no avail.

Kasmar BDO Vijay Kumar said said that the pensioner was declared dead owng to technical error. He said that they wrote a letter on 20 April this year to the Assistant Director of Social Security, Bokaro in this regard adding his pension will be restored soon.