The pensioners of our country are in a pathetic pickle. These old persons spent the best time of their lives serving the people of our country. Most of them are octogenarians and many of them are decrepit ones. Every month they throng at the doors of National Bank of Pakistan to get their pensions. Most of them walk with dragging feet with a pension's copy in their one hand and a stick to walk with in the other hand. With spectacles having thick lens, they are often accompanied by their grandsons or grand daughters and sometimes by their immediate neighbors. They stand in a long queue, rain or shine, to have their pensions. The pension in all other countries is sent to the pensioners at their homes. But strange are the laws of our land. A pensioner has to present the attested papers that he is drawing the pension himself and it is not anyone else on his behalf who has come to draw the pension. Not only that but there is a ludicrous requirement by the concerned authorities that the pensioner is not yet dead. A funny incident took place in Lahore some months ago when a pensioner did not draw his pension for five moths and when he went to collect his pension for six months, he was asked by the concerned people to present an attested certificate that he had not died during the previous six months. I would like to invite the kind attention of the President of Pakistan who spent a whopping amount of 6 crore rupees during his visit to England some time back along with his entourage to spare a thought for such helpless and poor pensioners and prevail upon his men in the Parliament to do away with such preposterous laws as mentioned above. MUBUSHAR ALI SULEHRIA, Wah Cantt, August 6.