Govt carries out reforms in Pension segment to make life easy for the pensioners

1. The Department of Pension & Pensioners’ Welfare has successively taken steps in the recent past date to make life easy for the Pensioners. The Department runs a very effective online grievance portal “CPENGRAMS” (Centralized Pension Grievance Redressal & Monitoring Mechanism) in which any Central Government Pensioner can register a complaint and the same is monitored by DoPPW till its final resolution and closure by the Pension settling Department/Ministry.DoPPW  started a Toll-free call centre  number 1800-11-1960 in June 2019 where pensioners grievances are lodged . The Department also counsels senior citizens on their Pension related problems on this number.

 

2. The Department got a deep-dive/root-cause analysis conducted by an independent third party. It was seen that some Ministries/Departments often closed grievances routinely without qualitative resolution. It therefore evolved a model of on-the-spot resolution of grievances called the Pension Adalat. Chronic cases were culled out of the CPENGRAM system.The concept of Pension Adalat entails on-the-spot resolution of the grievances of pensioners. These grievances are short-listed in advance for taking up in the Adalat. This model has been evolved for speedy justice for the pensioner and avoiding court cases and undue harassment of the pensioner, who has failed to get the grievance resolved after approaching his department or/and various other stake-holders involved in the case. Therefore, after giving advance notice to all the stake-holders, which may involve the Head of Office (HOO), Pay and Account Office (PAO), Central Pension Accounting Office (CPAO), Pension Disbursing Bank/treasury etc. they are called on a common platform in the presence of the pensioner/family pensioner or his/her representative during the Adalat to give an on-the-spot resolution. Four such Adalats have been conducted by DoPPW till now, the last one being conducted in the Union Territory of Jammu the very first outside the National Capital.

 

3. With respect to NPS *National Pension System), which falls within the jurisdiction of the Department of Financial Services,DoPPWdecided to start Awareness workshops for Central Govt employees. It therefore conducted its first Awareness program at Jammu in order to educate the subscribers about the provisions of NPS and at the same time educate the different Departments on the Dos &Don’ts with respect to the system. This was followed by a detailed Q & A session in which several doubts of the employees as well as the staff of different Departments handling the NPS were clarified. The presentation was made by the team of NSDL, the Central Record Keeping Agency which works under the PFRDA (Pension Fund Regulatory Authority) which functions under the Department of Financial Services.

 

4. NPS cases pertaining to Central Government Employees, as well as those of the UT of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K), whose accounts have certain irregularity were taken up and their respective Pr. AOs (Principal Accounts Officers) and DDOs (Drawing and Disbursing Officers) were advised corrective action, so that the subscribers do not suffer continuous loss, resulting in lower annuity value, post their retirement.

 

5. Keeping in view the representations/court cases filed by several Central Government officials covered under the NPS (National Pension Service)whose recruitment had been completed before 01.01.2004, but who for some reason, administrative or otherwise, could join service only on or after 01.01.2004, an option has been given vide circular issued on 17.02.2020 to join the old pension system, if they so desire by giving a one-time option up to 31.05.2020.

 

6. One of the most noteworthy initiatives taken up by the Department was promotion of Digital Life Certificate. Keeping in view the difficulty faced by those seniors who are settled abroad with their children after retirement, the Department on 20.02.2020 brought out a circular on Consolidated Instructions on Life Certificate and Commencement of Family Pension for those living abroad, vide which the Bank branches abroad as well as the Indian Embassies/Consulates/High Commissions have been instructed to facilitate submission of Life Certificate and commencement of family pension.

 

7. All Pension disbursing Banks have been instructed vide a circular issued on17.01.2020 to provide door-step Life Certificate facility to those pensioners who are unable to visit Banks in the month of November.

 

8. To provide comfort to Pensioners aged 80 and above, O.M dated 18.07.2019 enables them to submit their Life Certificate w.e.f. October 1st every year instead of 1st November. A pilot was done in 2018 in 8 cities in which Pensioners’ Associations were roped in to go door to door and in hospitals/ICUs with newly purchased Iris devices to collect DLCs. This was expanded in 2019 to 24 cities. With these efforts, the number of successful DLCs of Central Government Pensioners rose radically.: 2015 (2,53,889), 2016 (8,00,056), 2017 (9,71,436), 2018 (12,44,957) and 2019 (13,23,861): which reflects the positive impact of this initiative.

 

9. DoPPW also showed the sensitive side of the Government in power with several reforms which touched human lives immensely. To enumerate a few:

 

•   Rule 54 of CCS (Pension) Rules was amended vide notification dated on 19.09.2019 to provide for payment of enhanced family pension (50% of last pay) to families of even those employees who die during service before completing service of 7 years. Earlier, the family of an employee who died during service before completing service of 7 years was not entitled to enhanced family pension.

 

•  A minimum qualifying service of 10 years is required for eligibility for pension under the CCS (Pension) Rules. Rule 38 of CCS (Pension) Rules amended to provide for Invalid Pension @ 50% of last pay to those Government servants who retire due to bodily or mental infirmity even before completing qualifying service of 10 years. (Notification dated 4.1.2019 and OM dated 12.2.2019).

 

•  The rules provide for payment of family pension to divorced daughters if the divorce took place during the life time of employee/pensioner or his/her spouse. Orders issued for allowing Family Pension to divorced daughter even in cases where divorce proceedings had been filed during the life time of employee/pensioner or his/her spouse but divorce took place after their death. (OM dated 19.7.2017).

 

•  For those who are boarded out on grounds of disability the amount of constant attendant allowance being paid to disability pensioners revised from Rs.4,500/ per month to Rs.6,750/- per month. (OM dated 2.8.2017).

 

•  For those living in non-CGHS areas, for OPD the amount of Fixed Medial Allowance (FMA) raised from Rs.500/- per month to Rs.1000/- per month (OM dated 19.7.2017).

• The Department also has started a real-time Dashboard for the CAPF (Central Armed Police Forces- BSF, CISF, CRPF, SSB, ITBP, Assam Rifles) martyrs’ families. This Dashboard is posted immediately on the occurrence of a death of a Martyr and the family pension is monitored through a daily dashboard by the Department to ensure timely payment so that the family does not have to run around for Pension. Within 2 months of the Dashboard, the pendency of Pension settlement of Family Pension cases by the CAPFs have been halved.

 

• Permission of CMO/CGHS dispensed with for sanctioning FMA to pensioners residing in cities/areas not covered under CGHS.(OM dated 31/01/2018).

 

• Co-authorization of pension for disabled children/siblings/dependent parents introduced in the PPO. This would avoid the delay and hassles of a fresh PPO by the office in favour of disabled children/siblings/dependent parents. (Notification dated 1.07.2013).

 

• Minimum pension raised from Rs.3500/- per month to Rs.9000/- per month. Minimum disability pension and family pension covered under CCS(EOP) Rules enhanced from Rs.7,000/- to Rs.18,000/-. (OM dated 4.8.2016)

• A new slab of death gratuity has been added. The family of a Government servant dying  while in service with a qualifying service of 11-20 years would be entitled to death gratuity @ 20 times of monthly emoluments as against the existing entitlement of 12 times of emoluments. (OM dated 4.8.2016).

• The ceiling of gratuity raised from Rs.10 lakhs to Rs.20 lakhs. (OM dated 4.8.2016)

• The rates of ex-gratia lump-sum compensation being paid to the families of employees who die in performance of duty has been increased from existing 10-15 lakh to Rs.25-45 lakh, depending upon the circumstances in which the death occurs. (OM dated 4.8.2016).

• Orders issued on 23rd June, 2017 allowing restoration of full pension on completion of commutation period of 15 years to all absorbee pensioners who had taken 100% lump-sum amount in lieu of pension on absorption in PSUs/Autonomous bodies. (OM dated 23.6.2017)

• Orders issued for grant of family pension to a disabled child/sibling even in cases where disability certificate is produced after death of parents but disability occurred before their death. (OM dated 25/01/2016)

• Benefit of gratuity extended to NPS employees, on the same terms as applicable to employees appointed before 01.01.2004. (OM dated 26.8.2016)

• DoPPWalso targeted awareness of Pensioners/Family Pensioners through Social Media. 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 Singhlaunched the Twitter “DO YOU KNOW SERIES” on Family Pensionat Jammu on  29.2.2020

 

• DoPPW will now take out a series of 30 info graphics( 2 per week) to spread awareness about Family Pension. Through this the Pensioners/Family Pensioners/Departments & Ministry officials/Bank officials/Pensioners’ Associations who would be following DoPPW Twitter will become aware of the Family entitlements for which till now they had to run around offices. Two booklets on Family Pension, one in Hindi and another in English were also released by the Hon’ble MoS(PP). It is noteworthy that the Social Media publicity series was launched for the entire country from the Union Territory of Jammu.

 

BHAVISHYA (The online Pension settling system with pre-fed Pension Rules & Calculator) Pensioners' Portal was immensely strengthened by adding the facility of online pension sanction process – ‘BHAVISHYA’ which is a software with a digitized end to end solution for Pension settlement.Bhavishya, has been made mandatory for all Civil Ministries/Departments w.e.f. 01-01-2017 which means that all cases have to be settled on this platform. The retiree fills the forms online and every file movement is marked with an SMS to the retiree. There are strict time-lines set for every stake-holder to deal with the Pension settlement. Integration of Bhavishya software with all stake holders viz. PFMS and PARAS and e-Awas which has enabled generation of e-PPO.This has made the concept of e-PPO possible and approximately 16500 e-PPO have already been generated. The e-PPO system is a landmark in digitization of pension processing and the Department is now tying up with Digi Locker so that the e-PPO goes directly to the Pensioners’ DigiLocker and remains a permanent record.

 

As of now more than 1 lakh cases have already been processed through BHAVISHYA software. In addition, more than 36,306 cases are at various stages of processing through 802 offices covering around 7109 DDOs of civil Ministries/ Departments on-board. Scope being expanded to cover Union Territories (UTs).

 

 

SANKALP

With a view to reorient pensioners towards an active post retired life and to gainfully utilize their skill and experience towards nation building activities and social work, a new initiative namely SANKALP undertaken. Under SANKALP Pre-Retirement Counselling (PRCs) are being organized for those employees who are about to retire in a year. In Pre-Retirement Counselling apart from their pension dues, information are also being shared about Active post retirement life. Pre-Retirement Counselling Workshops (PRCs) were held for retirees, especially those Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) posted in far flung areas, deployed at the frontiers including Shillong, Jaisalmer, Jammu etc.  47 such sessions have been conducted by DoPPW so far. Training of Trainers (TOT) workshops conducted and a pool of 760 Master trainers created. These Master trainers are able to further conduct Pre-Retirement Counselling (PRC) for their employees within Departments.

 

The Pensioners were involved in 24 cities to obtain Life Certificate through digital devices from home and hospitals of those Pensioners who were unable to go and personally give LCs in Banks. 4100 such DLCs were collected from home and hospitals.

1224 pensioners engaged by the Staff Selection Commission (SSC) as inspecting officers/members of the flying squad during examinations in various cities etc.

 

The Department involved a number of identified Pensioners' Associations for motivating pensioners/citizens to organize Swachh Bharat movement in various parts of the country. Several cleaning campaigns were organized by the Associations in Guwahati, Bengaluru, Allahabad, Vadodara, Assam and Bihar.