New Delhi: The Department of Pension & Pensioners’ Welfare, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, will organise next Pension Adalat on 9th February, 2018 under the auspices of MoS (PP) Dr Jitendra Singh, wherein 34 grievances of 17 Ministries/Departments (including 3 unresolved grievances) will be considered. The issues include revision of Family Pension, Commutation of Pension, final settlement of GPF, Fixed Medical Allowance etc. In the first Pension Adalat conducted in September 2017, out of 29 grievances, 26 have been resolved. To strengthen the grievances redressal mechanism, the department has started Pension Adalat wherein unresolved grievances are taken up and petitioner along with concerned Ministry/Department, Banks, CPAO etc. are brought at one common platform with an objective to provide on the spot resolution of grievance.
Department of Pension formulates policy of pension and pension related matters of central government employees and ensures welfare of pensioners’ through various activities. The Department felt that laying down the policy only is not sufficient, it is also equally important to create awareness of updated rules amongst pensioners. At present the strength of Central Government pensioners are around 61 lakh scattered across the country. Web based system along with Print and electronic media is a viable source to reach out to the pensioners living in far flung areas of the country. Pensioners’ Portal is a web based single platform created with the objective to disseminate pension related information as well as to provide redressal of the pensioners’ grievances at a single point. The system has been strengthened and now available on mobile app.
In the recent years following orders have been issued for the benefit of pensioners/family pensioners:
Minimum pension has been enhanced from Rs.3500/- to Rs.9000/- per month;
In case of Disability Pension, minimum pension is Rs.18,000/- per month;
The ceiling of gratuity has been increased from the existing Rs.10 lakhs to Rs.20 lakhs;
Constant Attendant allowance has been increased from Rs.4500/per month to Rs.6750/- per month;
Fixed Medical allowance (FMA)enhanced from Rs. 500/- per month to
Rs.1000/- per month;
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 Rs. 10-15 lakhs to Rs.25-45 lakhs;
Divorced daughter will be eligible for family pension if divorce case has been filed before the death of pensioner/family pensioner, even though the judgment has been passed after the death of the pensioner /family pensioner;
Permission of CMO/CGHS has been dispensed with for sanctioning Fixed Medical Allowance (FMA) to pensioners residing in cities/areas not covered under CGHS;
General Provident Fund (Central Service) Rules has been liberalized by raising the limits and by including more reasons for withdrawals. Procedures have been simplified by allowing subscribers to withdraw funds based on a simple declaration;
Order issued to ensure timely payment of final GPF. Responsibility to be fixed at each level if GPF final payment gets delayed.
In order to ensure timely and accurate settlement of pension, this department has started an online pension assessment and sanction system called ‘Bhavishya’. As of now 429 offices of civil ministries/departments are on the board of Bhavishya processing 15,000 pension cases of government employees. This system has been developed based on CCS (Pension) Rules, 1972 with inbuilt automatic calculation system. It avoids repetition of manual entry at various levels, thereby reducing the chances of human error.
After implementation of 7th CPC recommendations, the cases of revision of pension of pre-2016 pensioners have also been processed on Bhavishya. The revision module in Bhavishya is based on concordance tables issued by Department of Pension & PW and facilitates the offices to revise pension cases without any manual calculation. As of now 35523 cases have been processed through Bhavishya.
This Department is also promoting use of submission of Digital Life Certificate among the pensioners so that they can submit life certificate from anywhere without waiting in long queue in banks. Till date 93% of pensioners accounts have been seeded with Aadhar number which enables them to avail the digital life certificate in future. From 01.11.2017 to 31.01.2018, total 61, 47,119 pensioners have submitted their life certificate through Jeevan Pramaan.
Department of Pension is regularly organizing Pre-Retirement Counseling (PRC) for employees nearing retirement to create awareness about the procedure of getting pensionary benefit in time and explore the opportunity using their skill towards nation building post retirement. Till date 38 PRCs have been conducted benefiting 3801 retiring government servants. Department also conducts Training of Trainers to strengthen in house capabilities of Government Ministries/Departments for conducting Pre-retirement counseling for their own retiring employees.
On the direction of Hon’ble Prime Minister, Department has developed ANUBHAV an online system of sharing experiences by retiring government employees. ANUBHAV is facilitating retiring officials to record their experiences and create a wealth of institutional memory for future generations. To encourage retirees for submission of quality write ups, an award scheme has also been instituted. In 2017, contributors of 16 write ups have been awarded by MoS (PP) Dr Jitendra Singh.
