Hyderabad: After farmers suicides, the TRS government is under fire for the wave of suicides and deaths due to shock deny old age, widows and physically challenged pension hundreds of thousands of beneficiaries.

Every day five such incidents are being reported from districts in the state since November 8, the day Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao had launched the plan to distribute Aasara improved pensions.

The government has increased the amount of Rs 200 to Rs 1,000 for old age and widows' pensions and Rs 1,000 to Rs 1,500 for primary health centers. However, had abolished all existing pension beneficiaries identified during the Congress regime and sought new applications for it.

While 39.62 lakh applications were received for pensions, the Government has approved only 24.21 lakh so far after verification, triggering panic among genuine applicants. The number of pensioners in the old scheme were 29.11 lakh.

Even going by this number, there is a shortfall of six lakh beneficiaries in the new scheme. In Mahbubnagar district alone, we eliminated nearly one lakh pensions. An elderly couple, who had made use of pension for years, had died from shock after their names were missing in the new scheme in the district, leading to serious resentment among the people.

In Karimnagar, a woman of 80 years old, died of mental agony after his pension was rejected on grounds that his widowed daughter has already received the benefit.