Old-age pension beneficiary in Odisha stages sit-in with bottle of poison 

Carrying a poison bottle, an old age pension beneficiary staged a demonstration at Sadang Panchayat office under Hatadihi block in Keonjhar district over the non-payment of pension money. 

Though the incident happened on Friday, it came to the fore on Saturday. 

A resident of Sadang Panchayat, Dasarathi Jena had made rounds of the block office and bank to get his pension money. Fed up with the inertia of the officials involved, he staged a sit-in at the panchayat office with a bottle of poison. 

“I met the BDO thrice but am yet to get my pension money. The Sarpanch is not making payments regularly. I will end my life if my pension money is not released,” said a worried Dasarathi. 

Dasarathi along with other beneficiaries alleged that they used to get their pension money regularly earlier. They said they have been facing issues in the disbursement of pension money for the last four months. 

Later, the Sarpanch intervened and managed to pacify the irked old-age pension beneficiaries following which the sit-in was called off. 

“The beneficiaries have been facing problems due to issues with the linkage of their bank accounts. We have intimated the same to the BDO. No step has been taken so far at his end to mitigate the problem,” said the Sarpanch of Sadang Panchayat.