Hemant Soren's Big Announcement On Old-Age Pension In Jharkhand

Making two major announcements on the fourth anniversary of his government, Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren has said the qualifying age for old-age pension will be reduced from 60 to 50 for Dalits and tribals, and 75% of jobs will be reserved for locals in companies that set up offices in the state.

At an event held in Ranchi's Moradabadi ground on Friday, Mr Soren said, "The government has decided to provide pension benefits to tribals and Dalits on reaching the age of 50 years."

"The death rate among them is high and they do not get jobs after 60 years," news agency PTI quoted him as saying.

The Jharkhand Mukti Morcha chief claimed that only 16 lakh people had received pension benefits since the formation of the state in 2000, but the coalition government led by him has provided pension to 36 lakh people, the PTI report said. The Congress is also part of the ruling coalition.

"In four years of our government, we have given pension benefits to 36 lakh people above 60 years of age, widows above 18 years of age and also physically challenged persons." he said.

Mr Soren said Jharkhand is the poorest state in the country and it struggled with Covid-19 and drought, but there was no chaos in the state government despite that. He claimed that poor states like Jharkhand supplied oxygen to other states, and that poor labourers were saved during the pandemic, but two ministers lost their lives.

Taking a dig at the previous BJP regime in the state, the chief minister said the "double-engine" government had "destroyed everything" and farmers had died during its tenure. He thanked the people for electing his government and said that Jharkhand will be governed not from Delhi or the state headquarters but from its villages. 

While the contours of the Jharkhand jobs-for-locals promise are not yet clear, the Punjab and Haryana high court had, last month, struck down a similar law in Haryana, terming it unconstitutional. The petitioners had argued that the sons-of-the-soil concept behind the law was an infringement of the constitutional rights of employers.