As its pension expenditure mounts, the Railways have come out a 'bright idea'. Recently, it sent out some of its officers to banks to verify if genuine pensioners were at all drawing pension from the linked accounts. This is because an unusually large number of railway pensioners are in the 80-plus age group. In November every year, pensioners are required to visit banks and sign on 'life certificate'. However, this plan has now been hit by demonetisation as banks have told zonal railways that they are so busy that the pensioner verification process will happen probably in January.