25TH Meeting of Standing Committee of Voluntary Agencies (SCOVA)

25TH Meeting of Standing Committee of Voluntary Agencies (SCOVA)

The Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Dr. Jitendra Singh presided over the 25th Meeting of Standing Committee of Voluntary Agencies (SCOVA) here today.

MOS (PP) informed the members of the SCOVA that this Department has made significant changes in the pension rules for the Central Government employees. The time prescribed for processing pension papers has been reduced from two years to one year. The procedure for verification of service for Pensionary benefits has been made simpler and quicker. Now service verification certificate will be issued twice – once after 18 years of service and then five years before superannuation. Provision has been made to rely upon the statement made by the Govt. servant in rare circumstances of non-availability of service records. These steps will eliminate the delay in verification of service, which is the most common cause for delay in getting pension.

Department of Pension & Pensioners’ Welfare receives pension grievances electronically on the Centralized Pension Grievances Redressal and Monitoring System (CPENGRAMS). Grievances are also received in the form of manual letters which are also put into CPENGRAMS application for easy monitoring. The various Ministries and Departments also receive grievances directly from pensioners under their own login ID. For redressal, regular review meeting is being held preferably once in a month with various Ministries/Departments. During the current financial year against a total of 10,051 grievances, 6,197 were disposed of, with a balance of 3,854 pending grievances.

Dr. Jitendra Singh further informed that the Department of Pension & Pensioners’ Welfare has started organizing Pre-Retirement Counseling (PRC) workshop on last Wednesday of every month for the benefit of retiring employees of the Government of India as a welfare measure. The workshop with retiring employees focuses on the following aspects: (i) formalities necessary for timely payment of retirement benefits (ii) motivation as well as mind-set change for post-retirement activities (iii) Facilities of CGHS/Fixed Medical Allowances after retirement (iv) advice on financial matters i.e. investments, and (v) preparation of Will. The Department has organized 4 PRC workshops till August 2014 this financial year.

source-pib