Steps taken to streamline and strengthen pension sanctioning and payment system

Steps taken to streamline and strengthen pension sanctioning and payment system

A number of steps have been taken in the recent years to streamline and strengthen the pension sanctioning and payment system. Department of Pension & Pensioners’ Welfare launched Bhavishya – an online tracking system for pension sanction and payment. By keeping track of the progress as well as close monitoring of each pension case, it introduces transparency and accountability into the system thereby plugging delays. This system is at present being successfully implemented in the main Secretariat of 93 Ministries/Departments including 791 Attached Offices.

The following measures have been taken by various departments/ agencies to strengthen the redressal system in respect of pension related grievances:

1.  Department of Pension & Pensioners’ Welfare (DoPPW) w.r.t. Central Government Civil Pensioners:

• CPENGRAMS is a Centralized Web-enabled Pension Grievance Redress and Monitoring System which was started in 2007 for speedy redressal and effective monitoring of pension related grievances of pensioners.
• It has the following facilities: –
  • Registration of pension grievances available 24*7 basis
    • Forwarding of reminders to the concerned Ministries/Departments
  • Enquiry on status of registered grievance
    • Online disposal of grievances by the concerned Ministry/ Department.
    • A new Call Centre with toll free number (1XXX-XX-1960) has been launched on June 20, 2019 for pensioners for greater ease of registering grievances.
    • A Mobile App of the Department is also available for lodging of grievances.
    • The Department has also conducted ‘All India Pension Adalat’ on 18 September, 2018 in which 9368 pensioners’ grievances were resolved on the spot.

2. Central Pension Accounting Office (CPAO) w.r.t. central government civil pensioners: Under Digital India Campaign, CPAO took two important steps towards empowerment of central government civil pensioners which are as follows:-

• Electronic Pension Payment Order (e-PPO) was launched on 01.03.2018 and paperless movement of digitally signed Electronic Special Seal Authority (e-SSA) from CPAO to 39 Central Pension Processing Centers (CPPCs) is in operation and all the CPPCs are getting digitally signed Special Seal Authority (SSA) as well as the pension revision cases. This has led to faster processing of payment of pension and clerical errors have been reduced.
• Web Responsive Pensioners’ Service (WRPS) is an IT initiative of CPAO for the pensioners which provides various services including pension payment information for last 24 months, online pension process tracking & online grievance registration and redressal with facility to track the status of grievance.

3. Controller General of Defence Accounts (CGDA) w.r.t. Defence Pensioners:

• A dedicated Call centre in PCDA(P), Allahabad has been established with Toll free number 1800-180-5325 where ex-servicemen can get their queries resolved over the phone.
• Pension enquiry system named Project “Suvigya” is available on the Internet which enables pensioner to check their entitlements.
• In order to expedite redressal of grievance of Defence Pensioners, DPDOs hold Defence Pension Adalats on last working day of each month.
• Implementation of digitally signed e-PPOs for all categories of Pensioners which eliminates the time taken for dispatch and possibility of loss in transit.

4. Department of Telecommunication w.r.t Telecom Pensioners:

• Toll Free Number (18004250089) is available during working hours for lodging grievances.
• Quarterly Pension Adalat is conducted for all Telecom pensioners in Kerala and the same is publicized widely to reach all Telecom pensioners.
• Grievances raised in CPGRAMS Portal are addressed within 30 days.

5. Department of Posts w.r.t Postal pensioners:

• Pension disbursement has been automated which obviates the possibility of any grievances.
• The pensioners may approach at Post Office level, Division/Regional Office/PMG/CPMG level and Postal Directorate level to solve their problems.
• Pension Adalats are also being organized time to time at circle/state level for redressal of grievances of pensioners.

6. Ministry of Rural Development w.r.t. National Social Assistance Programme (NSAP):

• National Social Assistance Programme(NSAP) is a social welfare/ social security scheme, implemented in rural as well as urban areas of the Country. The schemes of NSAP are only applicable to the persons belonging to Below Poverty Line(BPL) households. The identification of beneficiaries, sanction and disbursement of pensions are made by the States/UTs. The NSAP Guidelines provides for setting up of grievance redressal system at the Gram / Intermediate Panchayat / District / Municipality levels, and designate an officer of appropriate seniority to whom the grievances can be addressed along with the timelines for dealing with grievances under intimation to the complainant. Furthermore, Guidelines also have the provision for periodically Social Audits. In addition, for effective implementation of NSAP, information technology interface has been strengthened. With this initiative, list of the beneficiaries has been completely digitized and against over 15 crore transactions through Direct Benefit Transfer(DBT) mode recorded in Financial Year 2017-18, during 2018-19, 21.27 crore DBT transactions have been reported by the States/ Union Territories.

This information was provided by the Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Development of North-Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh in written reply to a question in LokSabha today.

PIB