The Government has decided to transfer central freedom fighter pensioners from State Bank of India to other banks – authorized for the purpose, for disbursal of pension due to certain irregularities like paying pension to more than 3,000 dead pensioners for many years after their death, payment of wrong amount of pension to many pensioners, delayed payment of revised Dearness Relief, loss of more than 1,100 original disburser’s portion of PPOs. On account of these irregularities more than Rs.16 crore has already been recovered from State Bank of India.
In order to avoid any hardship to the pensioners, they have been advised to open account in any bank of their choice, from the 19 banks authorized for the purpose and the banks have been advised to approach such pensioners and open their accounts on priority.
This was stated by the Minister of State for Home Affairs, Shri Kiren Rijiju in a written reply to a question by Dr. P.Venugopal in the Lok Sabha.