Pension plan to cover disabled kin of staff

It took years of petitions, but they’ve finally got their due. Disabled siblings of the central government employees and pensioners will now be eligible to get family pension, reports Soumyajit Pattnaik.

It took years of petitions, but they’ve finally got their due.

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Disabled siblings of the central government employees and pensioners will now be eligible to get family pension.

The Ministry of Personnel in a statement on August 17 had said, “It has now been decided to include the dependent disabled siblings of government servants/pensioners in the definition of family for the purpose of eligibility for family pension. Such disabled siblings shall be eligible for family pension for life like the son/daughter of government employees/pensioners suffering from any disorder or disability of mind…”.

The government had been receiving petitions for years from various quarters to make dependent disabled siblings of government servants/ pensioners eligible for family pension.

It was argued that dependent disabled siblings were left in the lurch after the death of the government servant on whom they were dependent.

With no means of livelihood, the government was urged to provide cover for them under the family pension plan.

Family pension is sanctioned and authorised at the same time as pension and has to be drawn after the death of the pensioner.

In case of a government servant’s death while in service, the widow or widower or other eligible members can make a claim with the head of office (where the employee worked), who will then sanction the family pension through its Pay & Accounts Officer.

The family pension is payable to one eligible member at a time. In some cases, however, the family pension is divided among eligible members of the family.

This, however, did not include disabled siblings until the August 17 order.