Amita Tutti is a Community Correspondent and an Adivasi activist from the so-called Red Corridor. Amita's unwavering commitment to exposing the truth is inspired by her father who was poisoned to death by "upper” castes during the Adivasi land struggle. Her community has suffered for decades, caught in between the Maoist-Naxalite insurgency and police atrocities. Amita was born and raised…

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Khunti District, Jharkhand | Amita Tuti

A senior citizen was declared dead and his pension had been stopped. VV's correspondent took up this issue with the authorities and got pension resumed for him and many others in the village. The authorities involved, mainly the Tahsildar were very response and immediately rectified the mistake.

Amita Tuti reports from Khunti district of Jharkhand for IndiaUnheard. 

Video Transcript:

In September 2014, I had made a video on Pandya Munda from Khunti District, who was declared dead and his pension was stopped for nearly a year. Pandya's cause has finally seen the light of day.
- I used to get my pension but now it has been stopped.
- How long since you have received a pension?
- A very long time.
- Why has your pension stopped?
- The bank tells me that no money has come into my account.
- Did you visit the government officials regarding your plight?
- I did go to the bank to complain and realized that my adhaar card has come in half too. I have many financial expenses of my family like education which I cannot pay for. I have stopped paying for my children's education as my small piece of land cannot match expenses.

After making the video I prepared an requisition letter and submitted it along with my community to the tahsildar officer on 7th October 2014. This letter stated the issue that Pandya Munda was facing. After receiving the letter the tahsildar immediately perused the request.

- The pension requisition letter was received by me after which I immediately looked into the matter. They had declared him dead and I informed the operator to update Pandya's details and restart his pension. Everyone makes mistakes and we took steps to rectify our mistakes. Sometimes if our records show missing people or deaths people can send a request to rectify the details after which we update our records.

- Amita Tuti met with the officials and sent the official requisition letter. The officer in-charge looked into the matter and finally resolved our issue. Our pension which was stopped has finally been restarted. I am very happy and hope that any future mistakes like these get rectified by the officials. I have great respect for Amita. I visited the officials and they finally ratified me with all my payments through a cheque. Other people from my community also got their pension, which is a months pay right now. I cannot explain how happy I am now.
I would like to thank all the officials especially the tahsildar for taking this initiative.

The officials have listed Pandya Munda's name and have made him eligible for old age pension. I am Amita Tuti reporting from Khunti, Jharkhand for IndiaUnheard.

This video was made by a Video Volunteers Community Correspondent. Community Correspondents come from marginalised communities in India and produce videos on unreported stories. These stories are ’news by those who live it.’ they give the hyperlocal context to global human rights and development challenges. See more such videos at www.videovolunteers.org. Take action for a more just global media by sharing their videos and joining in their call for change.