Touching hearts, changing lives

Here are some of the initiatives taken by the Department of Pension & Pensioners’ Welfare to promote ease of living amid Coronavirus crisis

The Department of Pension & Pensioners’ Welfare have taken the following initiatives to promote ease of living amid COVID-19 crisis:

• The Department of Pension & Pensioners’ Welfare (DoPPW) has successively taken steps in the recent past date to make life easy for the Pensioners. Here are some other initiatives too
• The department runs an online grievance portal “CPENGRAMS” (Centralised 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.
• It 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. 
• With respect to NPS (National Pension System), DoPPW decided to start awareness workshops for central government employees. It conducted its first awareness programme at Jammu 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.
• 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 January 1, 2004 but who for some reason, administrative or otherwise, could join service only on or after that, an option has been given to join the old pension system, if they so desire by giving a one-time option up to May 31.
• Another initiative was the promotion of Digital Life Certificate. Keeping in view the difficulty faced by those seniors who are settled abroad with their children after retirement, it 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 and the Indian Embassies/Consulates/High Commissions have been instructed to facilitate submission of life certificate and commencement of family pension.
• All pension disbursing banks have been instructed to provide door-step Life Certificate facility to those pensioners who are unable to visit banks in the month of November.
• To provide comfort to pensioners aged 80 and above, OM dated July 18, 2019 enables them to submit their Life Certificate w.e.f. October 1 every year instead of November 1. 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.
• DoPPW also showed the sensitive side of the government with several reforms which touched human lives immensely. To enumerate a few:
• Rule 54 of CCS (Pension) Rules was amended to provide for payment of enhanced family pension (50 per cent of last pay) to families of even those employees who die during service before completing service of seven years. Earlier, the family of an employee who died during service before completing service of seven  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 at 50 per cent of last pay to those government servants who retire due to bodily or mental infirmity even before completing qualifying service of 10 years.
•  For those living in non-CGHS areas, for OPD the amount of Fixed Medical Allowance (FMA) raised from ₹  500 per month to ₹  1000 per month.
• Permission of CMO/CGHS dispensed with for sanctioning FMA to pensioners residing in cities/areas not covered under CGHS.
• Co-authorisation 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.
• Minimum pension raised from ₹  3500 per month to ₹   9000 per month. Minimum disability pension and family pension covered under CCS(EOP) Rules enhanced from ₹  7,000 to ₹  18,000.
• 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 to 20 years would be entitled to death gratuity at 20 times of monthly emoluments as against the existing entitlement of 12 times of emoluments.
• The ceiling of gratuity raised from ₹  10 lakh to ₹  20 lakh.
• 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 ₹  25 to 45 lakh, depending upon the circumstances in which the death occurs.
• DoPPW also 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 Singh launched the Twitter Do You Know Series on Family Pension at Jammu on  February 29.
• DoPPW will now take out a series of 30 info graphics (two per week) to spread awareness about family pension. Through this, the Pensioners/Family  Pensioners/Departments & Ministry officials/Bank officials/Pensioners’ Associations will become aware of the family entitlements for which till now they had to run around offices. Two booklets on family pension, in Hindi and English were also released by the MoS(PP).
• Bhavishya (Online pension settling system): Pensioners’ portal was strengthened by adding the facility of online pension sanction process — Bhavishya. It is a software with a digitised end to end solution for pension settlement.  As of now more than 1 lakh cases have already been processed through this software.
• Sankalp: With a view to re-orient pensioners towards an active post retired life and utilise their skill and experience towards nation building activities and social work, a new initiative namely Sankalp was undertaken. Under this, Pre-Retirement Counselling (PRCs) are being organised for those employees who are about to retire in a year.