Govt Continuously Bringing Reforms To Facilitate Pensioners, Their Families: Jitendra Singh

Union Minister Jitendra Singh on Monday said the government has been continuously bringing reforms to facilitate pensioners and their families. Addressing the 49th pre-retirement counseling workshop here, he said now divorced daughters are eligible for family pension and the seven-year service eligibility for entitlement of pension/family pension has been done away with.  "The intention is to free the regulatory regime of feudal mindset," said Singh, the Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions. The minister mentioned that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been pursuing the interest of pensioners since the government came to power in May 2014. 

The minimum pension was fixed at Rs 1,000 within a month after PM Modi assumed office; similarly, the family pension has also been revised, he said. Singh said, at present, there are more pensioners, about 77 lakhs, than active service personnel, which is about 50-60 lakhs. "Today, about 6,000-7,000 pensioners are in the age bracket of 'above 100 years' and they are drawing the same amount as pension as what they earned as salary. And nearly one lakh pensioners are in the age bracket '90 and 100 years," he said. "I am looking forward to the day when there will be more than one lakh pensioners above 100 years of age," the minister said.

On the occasion, Singh launched the integration of the pensioners portal of Canara Bank with the Bhavishya portal (an online tracking system for pension sanction and payment) and also the new services on SBI integrated portal. In his address, Secretary, Pensions & Pensioners’ Welfare (DoPPW), V Srinivas said the government aims to bring all 11.25 lakh pensioners online. This will facilitate the DoP&PW to remain in touch with the pensioners for their welfare, he said."The task of integrating of pension seva portal of SBI and Canara Bank with the Bhavishya portal has been completed. With this integration, the pensioners can now get their pension slip, the status of submission of life certificate, and Form-16 through the integrated pensioners' portal. All 18 pension disbursing banks will be integrated into the integrated pensioners' portal," Srinivas said.

In line with the government's objective of transparency, digitization, and service delivery, the Bhavishya platform has ensured end-to-end digitization of pension processing and payment, a statement issued by the Personnel Ministry said. From the retiree filing his/her papers online to the issue of the Pension Payment Order (PPO) in electronic format going into the Digilocker, this platform has showcased the intention of complete transparency and efficiency of the government, it said. The 'Bhavishya' platform, an integrated online pension processing system was made mandatory for all central government departments w.e.f. 01.01.2017.

This system is at present being successfully implemented in the main secretariat of 97 ministries/departments, including 818 attached offices, and 7,941 drawing and disbursing officers on board. As of date, more than 1,89,494 cases have been processed i.e. PPOs issued which includes more than 1,23,249 e-PPOs, the statement added.