Widows and Orphans Pension Act:

Procedure to access new privileges to be gazetted

Shirley Wijesinghe

The procedure to access new privileges formulated through the recent amendments to the Widows and Orphans Pension Act will be gazetted after it is signed by the Speaker, Pension Department Director K A Thilakaratne told the Daily News yesterday.

According to Thilakaratne, amendments for over 10 clauses of the W&OP Act had been presented to Parliament and passed by the House.

The Act will be implemented covering future entitlements and will also affect past entitlements. Applications for past entitlements will be called by the Pensions Department through a gazette notification. The contribution of W&OP arrears for the non-contributory period should be made by the widow or widower of a public servant for the entitlement, he said.

To be fair to pensioners who retired prematurely without obtaining W&OP rights of their pensionable service, due to certain restructuring programs of Public institutions, amendments to the Act now enables them to obtain deprived benefits, he added.