Veterans fume over non-payment of April pension, MoD clarifies
The pension disbursal agency, Controller of Defence Accounts (Pensions), has come under attack from members of the ex-servicemen community, including three-star generals.
FollowIndian armed forces veterans have sought Defence Minister Rajnath Singh's intervention over the non-payment of April's pension. However, the defence ministry later issued a clarification stating that 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.
However, the pension disbursal agency, Controller of Defence Accounts (Pensions), has come under attack from members of the ex-servicemen community, including three-star generals. It must be noted that the defence ministry launched SPARSH last year to simplify the process of defence pensions, including initiation, sanction, computation, revision and disbursement.
Former Northern Army Commander Lt Gen DS Hooda (Retd) took to Twitter to express the anguish of his community and sought the defence minister's intervention to resolve the issue.
In a tweet, he said, "Veterans complaining of pension stopped without explanation. For most, this is the only source of income. Is this how the we say 'Thank you for your service to the nation'? Request Rajnath Singh to intervene."
Seconding his concern, former Indian Army chief Ved Malik said, "It is serious."
Defence Ministry Clarifies
Following outrage among veterans on social media, the defence ministry clarified that all pensioners must complete annual identification in order to continue receipt of monthly pension, which is usually done in the month of November 2021 by all banks acting as Pension Disbursing Agencies.
The defence ministry, in a statement, said: 'Due to the COVID situation, the government had extended the window for annual identification due on November 30, 2021, up to March 31, 2022. Accordingly, SPARSH has been successfully disbursing monthly pensions to over five lakh pensioners, including 4.47 lakh pensioners migrated from the legacy system to SPARSH (post-January 1, 2016 retirees) up to March 31, 2022.'
'However, during the processing of pension for the month of April 2022, it came to light that the annual identification of around 3.3 lakh pensioners was not updated. A list was shared with all Pension Disbursing Banks to share updated identification data if any, and as a result identification status of more than 2.65 lakh pensioners was updated on SPARSH by April 25, 2022, leading to the successful processing of pension for all these pensioners.'
The defence ministry noted that 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.
In order to avoid hardship for such pensioners, a one-time special waiver has been accorded to these 58,275 pensioners to get their identification done by May 25, 2022. The pension for the month of April 2022 has now been processed and the pension is due to be credited by end-of-day of May 4, 2022. All such pensioners are being informed about pending annual identification through SMS and email.
'PCDA-P should take a proactive step'
Asianet Newsable has learnt that those who have not moved to the new system and also those who have submitted their life certificate online in SPARSH, have been receiving their pension amounts regularly, including that of April month too.
"Currently, the pensions have not been credited to only those veterans who did not submit their life certificate," an official said.
Brig Sandeep Thapar (Retd), a veteran said, "This is Principal Controller of Defence Accounts' arbitrary requirement and red-tapism to harass veterans. A continuation of what they do to an officer while in service (genuine claims rejected over trivialities). If the government lays down November for the life certificate, who is PCDA to ask for it in April? Is it above the government?"
Lambasting at the PCDA, the former Infantry officer said, "This was expected. Even public sector banks are more responsive and reactive then (than) PCDA. A well functioning system was ruined. Transfer of accounts done to save meagre amount; more will go in paying four accretions PCDA will ask for this additional workload (for which they possibly moved the file)."
Talking to Asianet Newsable, Major General Ashok Kumar (Retd) said that the Allahabad-based PCDA-P should take a proactive step to redress the grievances of the pensioners.
"Since there is a requirement of submitting a life certificate in the month of November for every pensioner, which is a mandatory requirement to continue the pension. Some of the pensioners have submitted their life certificates to their concerned banks. However, since the banks did not have any financial interest in the said process now after the migration to SPARSH some of the branches have not uploaded the life certificates given by the pensioners on the SPARSH portal. It has resulted in some of the pensioners not getting their pensions by the due date," he said.
He also said that the veterans had tried to reach out to the PCDA-P but the phone numbers remain largely busy.
"There is a need to be much more proactive on the part of PCDA-Pension so that none of the pensioners is deprived of their pension welfare because it is their lifeline for his survival and also to his family members," Major General Ashok Kumar (Retd) said.
It would have been that since the financial transaction issues were being handled, a trial method could have been adopted wherein 100 per cent of pensioners would have reached once they would have succeeded in passing the pension. Then only the migration should have been adopted for everyone, he added.
As earlier reported first by Asianet Newsable about SPARSH's introduction last year, the serving and veterans had raised apprehension about the centralisation, digitisation and security of data. An official had said then that the new system would help the government in saving about Rs 250 crore annually. Under the old system, the banks used to charge Rs six per pensioner annually.
Presently, India has over 33 lakh defence pensioners and over 5 lakh have been shifted to SPARSH. The remaining are expected to complete the process of shifting by June.
