Chief minister Hemant Soren late on Sunday instructed Dhanbad deputy commissioner Amit Kumar via a tweet to organise special camps to dispose of all pension-related applications.

Hemant’s instruction at 8.46pm dealt with pending applications of 14 persons of Dhanbad’s Nirsa block.

They include nine applicants of old-age pension, two of widow pension and three of physically challenged persons, raised through the Twitter handle of a Dhanbad resident Hanuman Prasad Garg.

Talking to The Telegraph, Dhanbad additional director (social security) Anuj Bando said they immediately initiated action on the specific cases raised through the chief minister’s Twitter handle.

“Nirsa circle officer Modasar Nazar Mansuri is personally monitoring the identification of all the 14 cases mentioned,” Bando said.

He added that they had been regularly organising special pension camps in all the 10 blocks of Dhanbad district — Dhanbad, Purbi Tundi, Tundi, Baghmara, Topchanchi, Govindpur, Nirsa, Egarkund, Kaliasol and Baliapur.

“In fact, one camp in Nirsa recently concluded on January 25,” Bando said.

There are round 1.30 lakh beneficiaries of various pension schemes across the 10 blocks of the district, he said, of which the most number — around 60,000-70,000 — are beneficiaries of old-age pensions.

“All beneficiaries get a uniform pension of Rs 1,000 per month under the different schemes such as Swami Vivekanand Nishakt Swavlamban Protsahan Yojana, Indira Gandhi National old-age pension scheme and Indira Gandhi national widow pension scheme,” said Bando.

“We will again organise special camps as per the instruction of the chief minister especially for pending cases,” he promised

A screenshot of the chief minister’s tweet on Sunday.

Dhanbad’s Garg had posted the list of applicants of the three different pension categories — old age, widow and differently abled — with his request to the chief minister that they be given relief at the earliest.

According to Garg’s list, the seven elderly persons of Bhagabandh panchayat of Nirsa block who had applied for old age pension are Khudiram Mahto, Chunnilal Mahto, Pran Kisko Mahto, Chuna Bala, Shefali Bala, Yugi Bala and Ramchandra Mahto, besides others from Poddardih panchayat, Bandani Marandi and Puran Marandi.

The two women he listed as eligible for widow pension were from Bhagabandh panchayat of Nirsa, Hua Mahto and Shakuntala Hembrom.

The three differently abed persons Garg listed were also from Bhagabandh — Motilal Hansda, Jhantu Mahto and Samir Turi.

Dhanbad deputy commissioner Amit Kumar told The Telegraph that their district had been proactive about organising pension camps at different places, and camps were lined up on Tuesday and Saturday.

Then why the pending applications?

A senior official of the district administration, who insisted on anonymity, said the district had achieved saturation level with regard to its target of 1.30 lakh pensioners but new applications were pouring in.

“Pension applications keep coming. There is no cap on applications. But there is a cap on funds with regard to the pension schemes. So, the practical difficulty in disbursing pensions cannot be wished away,” he said.

Hemant, meanwhile, in recent tweets to deputy commissioners in Garhwa and Godda, asked them to help two other citizens in the respective districts who were in trouble.

The CM asked Garhwa DC Harsh Mangla to dispose of a case of a pending arrear of a computer operator of the district collectorate, Ramakant Prasad. He also asked Godda DC Kiran Kumar Pasi to help villager Sulekha Kumari, who lost her house in a fire recently. Twitter user Najmul Hasan had flagged Sulekha’s plight on Sunday.