Nayab govt has not paid the allowance for a year
Nayab govt has stopped pensions of 75,000 elderly people
Punjab Newsline, Chandigarh-
Aam Aadmi Party’s National Media In-charge Anurag Dhanda strongly criticized the BJP government of Haryana during a press conference at the Chandigarh Press Club. He said that the anti-people policies and intentions of Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini have forced athletes who bring medals to the country to struggle for their rights, dignity, and basic facilities. He said Haryana has always been the land of sports. Most athletes who have raised India’s flag high at the Olympics, Commonwealth Games, and Asian Games come from this soil. But today those same athletes are asking whether the value of their hard work and medals is limited only to applause on election stages. Have athletes been reduced to posters and speeches?
During the press conference, Anurag Dhanda released a poster calling CM Nayab Singh a “Just Chill CM.” He even termed the Chief Minister as having earned a PhD in lying on record. He said the Haryana CM has mastered lying and is working on a new policy of “run ahead, leave everything behind.” Athletes were earlier dying due to dilapidated sports grounds, and now the Nayab Singh government is trying to starve them. Addressing the Chief Minister directly, Dhanda asked: Haryana’s athletes sweat all day on the field and win Olympic medals through their parents’ hard-earned money. Some athletes even died due to falling poles in dilapidated grounds. Was that not enough that now the diet allowance of 37,000 athletes has been stopped?
Dhanda said the purpose of sports nurseries was to help grassroots athletes receive proper training and diet so they could compete at national and international levels. However, in 1,500 sports nurseries across the state, 37,000 athletes have not received diet allowance for the last 10 months. Coaches working in these nurseries have also not received salaries for 10 months. Should athletes arrange food or prepare for sports?
He questioned the government’s decision to shut sports nurseries for two months every year. He asked whether any athlete prepares for international medals by taking a two-month break. Athletes who wake up early daily to train for hours are being asked to take two months off, so the government can avoid paying diet allowances and coaches’ salaries. By distancing athletes from sports, the government is pushing them toward drug abuse, he alleged. He added that while athletes in existing nurseries are not receiving diet allowances, the government is talking about opening new sports nurseries.
Targeting the Chief Minister over old-age pensions, Dhanda said that while the CM recently claimed no pensions had been cut, more than 75,000 elderly people in Haryana have had their pensions stopped. Illogical reasons are being given for stopping pensions. If a farmer’s account shows ₹1.5–2 lakh from crop sales, they are being told their income is ₹3 lakh and therefore they are ineligible for pension. This means the government considers a farmer who sells crops worth ₹3 lakh as wealthy. Dhanda said farming does not generate profit; expenses are so high that running a household becomes difficult. In some cases, pensions are being stopped citing total family income in the Parivar Pehchan Patra, and in others due to name, surname, or age mismatches. Mistakes of officials and portals are being blamed on the elderly. In many cases, the entire family’s income is being counted, even though an elderly person’s pension eligibility should not depend on family income.
Dhanda said the purpose of old-age pension is to allow the elderly to live their final years with dignity, but the CM says they will not receive pensions because their families earn well. Across Haryana, hundreds of elderly people and women are standing in lines outside government offices asking why their pensions were stopped. Officials have no valid answers.
Warning CM Saini and the BJP government, Dhanda said that before people take to the streets and burn effigies, the government should focus on people’s basic problems. He demanded that the government immediately release around ₹10 crore in pending diet allowances for athletes and restore old-age pensions by stopping the practice of treating crop sales as income.