Hyderabad: The minimum age for unmarried women to claim the Rs 1,000 per month pension under the Telangana government's single women pension scheme has been set as 30 in rural areas and 35 in urban areas. For married women, the minimum age is 18 years, and they should be separated from their husbands for at least a year to be eligible for the pension. The scheme will be launched on June 2 on the occasion of Telangana State Formation Day, but will be applicable with retrospective effect from April. The government will hand over the pension amount of Rs 3,000 for three months to each beneficiary on June 2.

The income limit has been prescribed as Rs 1.50 lakh per annum in rural areas and Rs 2 lakh in urban areas. The scheme is also applicable to the widows of farmers and handloom workers who have committed suicide, the poverty-stricken wives of men who have left for the Gulf in search of employment and are now in jails there, and single women abandoned by families. It is also applicable to families whose bread winners have died in road accidents. Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao directed officials of the panchayat raj and rural development department to complete the identification of beneficiaries by May 15.

The PR&RD department has been appointed as the nodal agency for implementing the scheme. PR&RD minister Jupally Krishna Rao said that draft guidelines have been sent to the CM for approval. “After the CM’s approval, we expect to issue a GO on eligibility norms in a day or two. Everything is being done to ensure that the benefit reaches single women,” added Mr Rao. According to a survey by PR&RD, there are around 2.40 lakh single women eligible for the pension in TS. The scheme is expected to cost Rs 34 crore a month to the exchequer.