The minister for gas relief and rehabilitation,Vishvas Sarang, gave away symbolic cheques to widowed Women in the 1984 Bhopal gas disaster at a simple function to mark the resumption of monthly pension of Rs1,000 to 4,558 gas widows.
The pension has been resumed from April 2021, and an amount of Rs5,000 for the last five months was transferred into their accounts.
Minister Sarang assured that the pension scheme that was started in April 2011, which has been discontinued twice, will not be discontinued anymore.
The scheme was first discontinued in April 2016, as the argued that it was only for five years in which theCentrewas sharing 75% of the financial burden and the state 25%.
The scheme was, however, resumed in January 2018, for two more years but in December 2019, the scheme was again discontinued by the then Kamal Nath-ledCongressgovernment.
On the gas disaster anniversary last year, chief ministerShivraj Singh Chouhanhad announced that the scheme would be resumed again and in July, an allocation of Rs5.40 crore was made through a cabinet decision to provide Rs1,000 to 4,500 gas widows from April 2021.