Kohima, September 2: During the Zero Hour of the 9th Assembly Session of the 14th Nagaland Legislative Assembly, Dr. Tseilhoutuo Rhutso, MLA from 9th Kohima Town, raised concerns over the disbursement and verification of pensions in Nagaland. He highlighted the need to ensure timely payments to genuine pensioners while strengthening monitoring mechanisms to prevent irregularities and fraudulent withdrawals.
According to the figures presented, 63,370 retired government employees and nominees are currently receiving pensions through the State Treasury and SBI’s Computerised Pension Processing Centre. Pension expenditure has also increased from ₹2,429.56 crore in 2023-24 to ₹2,679.12 crore in 2025-26, with ₹1,049.63 crore spent up to July 2026 in the current financial year.
Rhutso flagged concerns including delayed reporting of deaths, non-verification of remarriage in family pension cases, possible duplicate payments and fraudulent documents. He called for time-bound physical and Aadhaar-linked biometric verification through Jeevan Pramaan, a high-level audit committee and a centralised online pension portal to improve transparency. He stressed that the proposed measures are aimed at protecting genuine pensioners while preventing financial losses to the State exchequer.
