Excelsior Correspondent
NEW DELHI, June 12: Dr. Jitendra Singh, Union Minister of State (MoS), Prime Minister Office (PMO), DoPT and Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions and MoS (Independent Charge) Science & Technology, today said that Government is working for Pensioners’ Welfare with a vision to ensure a life of dignity for them. One of the important plans of the new Government , he pointed out , is to ensure 100% payment of all retirement dues and the delivery of Pension Payment Order (PPO) to retiring employees on the day of retirement itself.
The Minister was speaking while launching “Bhavishya” programme by the Union Government’s Department of Pension & Pensioner’s Welfare at its first ever interactive Conference with the State Secretaries (Pension) held here with the objective of sharing information, experience and best practices on pension matters.
To this end the Department of Pension & Pensioners’ Welfare has taken a number of steps including review of forms, simplification of procedures and issue of clarificatory instructions said Dr Jitendra Singh and elaborated, an online Pension Sanction & Payment Tracking System called “Bhavishya” has been launched. By ensuring complete transparency, this system would obviate delays in sanction and payment of pension, he added.
In furtherance of what the Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been insisting upon, including benefits to reach to all the States and not merely restricted to Centre, Dr Jitendra Singh said, the Department of P&PW had , for the first time, convened a meeting with Pension Secretaries of State Governments with intention to share experiences and exchange views on common pension related issues and also to impress upon them that the responsibility of ensuring a life of dignity for pensioners passes on to the State Governments as well.
Invoking PM’s mantra of “Skills, Scale and Speed”, Dr Jitendra Singh stated that the Department of Pension should look into the urgent need to utilize the skill and experience of the pensioners for the betterment of the society. This was specially necessary in view of the increase in the number of retiring employees and increased life span, he added.
He further suggested that pre-retirement counseling workshops which are being institutionalized by the Department of Pensions for the Central Government retiring employees should also be organized by the State Government for the State employees. He suggested, for old and disabled pensioners also, there should be a mechanism for delivering pension at the doorstep.
The workshop was attended by representatives from 23 States /UTs. The response of the participants was very enthusiastic and they complimented Secretary (AR & PG and Pensions) Sanjay Kothari for the same. There was a general request for regular interactions of this nature.
Follow our WhatsApp channel