Defence Ministry intervenes to type out veteran’s pension delay

Express News Service

NEW DELHI: A lot of the retired Indian Army Soldiers didn’t get their pensions for the month of April with the issue attributed to the delay in submission of Life Certificate.  

On Wednesday an assurance was given by the Ministry of Defence to credit score the due pensions into their accounts to affected 58,275 pensioners by Wednesday.

The Ministry of Defence in its assertion on Wednesday mentioned, “The pension for the month of April 2022 has now been processed and pension is due to be credited by end-of-day on May 04, 2022. All such pensioners are being informed about pending annual identification through SMS and email.”

All pensioners should full annual identification to be able to proceed receipt of month-to-month pension, which is normally completed within the month of November 2021 by all banks appearing as Pension Disbursing Agencies. Due to the COVID state of affairs, Government had prolonged the window for annual identification due on November 30, 2021 upto March 31, 2022, MoD added.

“The banks (the previous Pension Disbursing Agency) could not confirm identification for 58,275 pensioners and neither was their identification received directly on SPARSH by the time of monthly closing. Hence, these pensioners were not paid their April pension by April 30, 2022,” MoD mentioned.

A one-time particular waiver has been accorded to those 58,275 pensioners to get their identification completed by May 25, 2022.

However, the troopers TNIE spoke to denied any intimation from the authorities to resubmit the Life Certificate.

“The Life Certificate was submitted on time in November. Had they asked us, we would have submitted it again,” instructed a Lieutenant General however didn’t want to be named.

There had been points since two or three months however it’s got highlighted because the numbers of troopers disadvantaged of their pension is kind of giant this time, he added.

“Indian Army’s pensioners are spread across the country and mostly into the rural areas. Among them a large number are widows who can hardly operate smart phones or computers thus it needs special attention for them to use the online system,” mentioned one other senior officer.

The on-line system was adopted to avoid wasting Rs 260 crores which was given to the banks as service fees, however there have been financial institution managers and likewise some veterans serving as advisors to the banks at varied senior ranges to resolve points, added the second officer.

There are round 3.3 million whole pensioners out of which over 5 lakh had been getting their pensions disbursed via System for Pension Administration (Raksha) (SPARSH) as an initiative of the Ministry of Defence envisaged offering a complete answer to the administration of pension to the defence pensioners.

The drawback was confronted by these veterans who retired submit January 2016 and had moved to a brand new system. A complete of 4.47 lakh had migrated from legacy system to SPARSH (submit 01.01.2016 retirees) upto March 31, 2022. During the processing of pension for the month of April 2022, as per MoD, annual identification of round 3.3 lakh pensioners was not up to date.

A listing was shared with all Pension Disbursing Banks to share up to date identification information, if any, and consequently identification standing of greater than 2.65 lakh pensioners was up to date on SPARSH by April 25, 2022 resulting in profitable processing of pension for all these pensioners, the MoD clarified.

The MoD, together with the Defence Accounts Department, is present process a serious transformation with an purpose to convey transparency and effectivity in varied processes and procedures. With the broader agenda of digitisation and modernisation of legacy techniques, the MoD mentioned.