A retired officer of Sonali Bank is living in severe hardship with his family, allegedly deprived of his renewed pension benefits due to a discrepancy in his date of birth in the bank's records—the same records he had used throughout his career to receive all bank benefits.
Md. Abu Bakkar Siddique Chowdhury, a retired officer from the Dinajpur Pulhat branch of Sonali Bank (retired in 2008), reported on Wednesday that although he had duly received his one-time retirement pension initially, he is now being denied a renewed pension under a new scheme.
According to a new pension rule introduced by a previous government, a retiree becomes eligible for a renewed pension if they survive 16 years after retirement. Meeting this condition, the elderly officer applied in 2023 to restart his pension.
However, despite the long wait, he has not received his entitled pension. When he contacted the Sonali Bank head office in Dhaka, he was informed that there was a complication due to an error in his recorded date of birth.
The retired officer questioned this justification, asking, "I used the same documents to receive all bank benefits throughout my life, including the one-time pension. Why is the same document being questioned as incorrect now? Is this not the bank authorities' extreme negligence?"
Md. Abu Bakkar Siddique Chowdhury alleged that due to administrative negligence by the bank, he has been deprived of his rightful pension for nearly two years, forcing him and his family to live in extremely difficult conditions.
The retired officer has appealed for the urgent intervention of the bank's higher authorities, hoping for a swift resolution to correct the "error" in his documents and restore his entitled pension benefits.
