Aizawl: Mizoram Home Minister K. Sapdanga on Monday announced that the Zoram People’s Movement (ZPM) government, led by Chief Minister Lalduhoma, resolved over 10,000 pending civil pension cases in just one and a half years.
He stated that these pension cases had remained unresolved during the tenure of previous governments.
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“As many as 10,623 pension cases, which remained pending for years, were resolved within just one and a half years under the ZPM government,” Sapdanga said while addressing a function at the ZPM office in Aizawl. “Another 10,000 such cases will be resolved within the next month.”
Sapdanga also claimed that government employees can now access their General Provident (GP) Fund whenever they need it.
He further asserted that the ZPM government is the only administration in Mizoram’s history to successfully implement its flagship programme within just one year.
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“Many political parties have ruled Mizoram in the past, but none of them managed to implement their flagship programmes effectively within a year,” he said.
The ZPM government launched its flagship programme, “Bana Kaih” or the Handholding Scheme, in September last year. The initiative aims to provide financial assistance and support, primarily to entrepreneurs and farmers (referred to as “progress partners”), through targeted schemes that promote economic growth and self-sufficiency.
The scheme adopts an innovative approach to tackle the challenge of institutional credit access, particularly microcredit, for agriculture and small-scale industries.
One of its key components is financial “handholding” of beneficiaries, under which the government offers financial aid and loans of up to Rs 50 lakh through partner banks.
As part of the programme, the government also introduced support prices for key crops such as ginger, turmeric, Mizo chilli, broomsticks, and unhusked rice, and directly procures these from farmers.
For the fiscal year 2025–26, the state government has allocated Rs 350 crore for the implementation of the Bana Kaih scheme.
Sapdanga reported that the government has already procured over 3 lakh quintals of ginger from about 20,000 farmers, providing support prices worth approximately Rs 120 crore under the scheme this year.
He added that the government is taking major steps to assist youth in launching their own startups under the initiative.
Highlighting more of the ZPM government’s achievements, Sapdanga said that the administration introduced the Mizoram Universal Health Care Scheme (MUHCS) to provide cashless treatment at government and empaneled private hospitals, both within and outside the state. The scheme offers a health cover of Rs 5 lakh per family per year.
He added that the government is working to partner with private hospitals and government employees to ensure the effective implementation of MUHCS.
Sapdanga also said that the ZPM government fulfilled a long-standing Mizo demand by relocating Assam Rifles establishments from the heart of Aizawl city to their designated camp at Zokhawsang, near Aizawl. On March 15, Union Home Minister Amit Shah attended a function in Aizawl marking the relocation.
He further claimed that the ZPM government has imposed a strict ban on the smuggling of Burmese areca nuts, which had been rampant in the past.
According to the home minister, the government has also eliminated illegal recruitment and favoritism by ensuring that all recruitment processes follow existing rules.
Among other initiatives, he said the ZPM government has:
- Increased the old-age pension honorarium by ten times.
- Boosted the state’s own tax revenue.
- Banned the illegal practice of policemen at inter-state check gates imposing unauthorized fines on visitors.