New Delhi: Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Sunday directed Social Welfare Minister Rajendra Pal Gautam to meet 80- year-old poet Asrar Jamayee's residence and correct the blunder by the city's social welfare department which decalred him dead in 2013, thereby depriving him of his pension benefits.
"Have asked Rajendr Gautam ji, Minister Social Welfare & Urdu Academy, to meet Asrar Sahib and do all the needful within 48 hours," Sisodia tweeted.
According to a report by activist Firoz Bakht Ahmed published by some portals, Asrar Jamayee was declared dead by the Social Welfare Department of South Delhi in 2013, depriving him of his monthly pension of Rs 1,500.
Since then, he has been fighting for survival, Bakht claimed in his report.
Jamayee lives alone in a rented single room littered with Urdu books (including his newly published ones, which lie under a thick layer of dust) and worn-out shervanis.
Since 2013, he has asked successive Delhi governments under Sheila Dikshit and Arvind Kejriwal for help, but to no avail. When he first appeared at the Social Welfare Department to prove that he qualified for old age pension, the officers there became belligerent.
“I told them, ‘I am standing in front of you, what could be greater proof [that I am alive]?” he said.
“The official replied that he knew that I was alive, but he couldn’t help me because the records insisted I was dead.”
The report further said Jamayee, who lives alone, had approached both the previous Congress regime under Sheila Dikshit and the present Arvind Kejriwal government for help, but to no avail.
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