Mumbai, Jun 17 (PTI) The Maharashtra cabinet on Tuesday gave its approval to double the amount of honorarium given to the persons in the state imprisoned during the Emergency period.
The cabinet also decided to add the name of the imprisoned person’s spouse as a beneficiary.
The state cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis approved these changes in the ongoing “Gaurav Yojana”.
Under the benefits given under the scheme at present, those imprisoned for a month during the Emergency period (1975-1977) get a monthly pension of Rs 5,000, while those jailed for more duration get Rs 10,000 per month. These amounts would be doubled as per the cabinet decision.
In the existing rule, if those imprisoned have died, their kin are being given a monthly pension of Rs 2,500 (for jail term of a month or less) and Rs 5,000 (for a jail term of more than a month).
The scheme was launched by Fadnavis during his first tenure as chief minister (from 2014 to 2019).
Those eligible had to apply to the district collectorate on a Rs 100 stamp paper, which was scrutinized by a committee headed by the collector.
Emergency was imposed from June 25, 1975 by the then prime minister Indira Gandhi, and remained in place till March 21, 1977.
In 2020, the Uddhav Thackeray led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government had stopped the pension scheme, but it was restarted after the Eknath Shinde-Fadnavis government came to power in 2022. PTI MR VT NP
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