Sans money, pensioners a harried lot

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, March 30

Pensioners were a harried lot on Monday as the government and various branches of national and private banks failed to release their pension on time. Amid the undergoing curfew, the state government had announced to open banks to felicitate the release of pension for two days starting Monday.

Gurdeep Singh Randhawa, a retired Principal, said: “We kept standing outside the bank branch for over an hour, but to no avail. After looking at my account book, the officials did not give any reasonable answer. Normally, the pension is deposited in our accounts on the 27th of every month.”

Shingara Singh, another pensioner, said: “Uncertainty has been bothering us over the release of our pension ever since the 21-day curfew was clamped down. I was asked to come on Monday to get my pension, but to no avail.”

Similar scenes of pensioners gathering outside different branches of banks were witnessed in the city.

At a bank branch on Dhapai Road, Jaswinder Kaur of the CPI approached the police for the smooth distribution of pension among people.

Officials said banking services were opened to offer cash to people while the national curfew was enforced.

The banks opened on Monday and will remain open on Tuesday as well. From April 3, the banks will be opened for two days a week.

Besides, they have to adhere to the norms of social distancing while discharging banking solutions. In this scenario, they were issuing token numbers to only those customers, who could be accommodated on Monday. They said customers of all kinds would have to cooperate with the staff to stop the spread of virus and smoothly discharge services.