Chandigarh: A Punjab government verification exercise of social security pension records has identified roughly 2.4 lakh deceased or ineligible beneficiaries who continued to appear in official lists, with district-wise figures circulating widely showing large numbers across the state.According to data from the Social Security, Women and Child Development Department released in connection with the recovery of about ₹145.74 crore (as of reports around September 2024), the numbers of such beneficiaries included:Amritsar: 17,851
Barnala: 6,770
Bathinda: around 19,500–19,590
Fatehgarh Sahib: 5,984
Faridkot: 6,081
Fazilka: 10,596
Gurdaspur: 13,799
Hoshiarpur: 12,317
Jalandhar: 20,434
Ludhiana: 18,088
Sri Muktsar Sahib: 11,991
Moga: 10,054
Mansa: 8,260
Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar: 12,204
Pathankot: 2,918
Patiala: around 24,000–24,316
Rupnagar: 4,751
Sangrur: around 7,000–7,888
SAS Nagar (Mohali): 4,808
Tarn Taran: 11,186 (and related figures)
These add up to well over 2 lakh cases in the listed districts.The poster circulating with these exact or near-exact district numbers highlights the scale under the headline roughly translating to “Two lakh dead people taking pension control stuck in Punjabi,” framing it as a major administrative failure. Official accounts, however, present the figures as the result of a cleanup: the department recovered funds previously credited to accounts of the deceased or ineligible and stopped further payments, with savings directed toward genuine beneficiaries.
Related efforts under the AAP government in Punjab have repeatedly targeted such leakages. Earlier surveys found tens of thousands of deceased names still drawing pensions (for example, over 90,000 identified in 2022). More recent drives, including under the “Sadde Buzurg, Sadda Maan” initiative, identified additional deceased pensioners, recovered sums in the range of ₹166–170 crore or more from accumulated amounts in bank accounts, and plugged annual leakages estimated in the hundreds of crores by removing over 1.9 lakh deceased or non-existent names from records in some cumulative reports.
Punjab currently provides ₹1,500 monthly social security pensions (old-age, widow, disability, etc.) via direct benefit transfer to around 35 lakh beneficiaries. Officials have stressed stronger verification, electronic systems, and ongoing monitoring to prevent recurrence, while adding new eligible people to the net. Critics and viral posts continue to use the large district figures to question past record-keeping and demand tighter controls.The verification and recovery process remains ongoing in phases, with the government stating that the cleaned-up funds help expand support for the truly needy.