Pensioners need not go to banks to give proof of life: Government

New Delhi: Pensioners need not visit banks to give proof of their life for continuation of pension, the Centre informed the Rajya Sabha today.

Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions Jitendra Singh

There is no procedural complication in the disbursement of pension or family pension of a central government pensioner or family pensioners. It is credited regularly to their pension account and it does not require the pensioners' physical presence in the pension disbursing bank, Minister of State for Personnel, Public grievances and Pensions Jitendra Singh said in a written reply.

"Further, a pensioner or family pensioner need not visit the bank even for submitting life certificate, which can either be submitted online through Aadhaar-based biometric authentication or be signed by a person designated by the government for this purpose," he said.

In case a pensioner sends intimation about his serious illness or incapacitation supported by a medical certificate, a nominee of the paying branch of the bank visits the pensioner at home or hospital for recording his life certificate, Singh said.

The are about 58 lakh central government pensioners.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had in November 2014, launched 'Jeevan Pramaan' --an Aadhaar-based digital life certificate for pensioners.

The certification was launched to do away with the requirement of a pensioner having to submit a physical life certificate each year, in order to ensure continuity of his or her pension.

PTI

Special Aadhaar Enrolment drive for Pensioners, from May 30 to June 10, 2016

Pensioners will also get opportunity to seed data for digital life certificate The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has launched a special enrolment drive for pensioners who are yet to enroll for Aadhaar. The drive is being conducted to enable Pensioners avail the convenience of Jeevan Pramaan, an initiative of Department of Pensions and Pensioners’ Welfare, Government of India. Every year, pensioners need to provide a life certificate to an authorized pension disbursing agency such as a Bank, Post office etc., for receipt of pension. To get a life certificate the pensioner is required to either personally present oneself before the Pension Disbursing Agency or have the Life Certificate issued by the department/authority where they served earlier and have it delivered to the disbursing agency. This entails considerable hardship to the senior Citizens. Jeevan Pramaan, a digital life certificate which utilises the Aadhaar identity platform, addresses this very problem by digitizing the whole process of securing a life certificate. A pensioner just needs to biometrically authenticate at the nearest centre. After successful authentication, the digital life certificate is stored in a Life Certificate Repository, which can be accessed by the Pension Disbursing Authority. To facilitate pensioners to avail the facility of Jeevan Pramaan, which is based on Aadhaar Identity platform, UIDAI and Department of Pensions and Pensioners’ Welfare have taken initiative to carry out special enrolment drive for Pensioners through banks which are Registrars for enrolment for Aadhaar as well as Pension Disbursing Authorities. The banks which include names like State Bank of India, Punjab National Bank, Bank of Baroda, Allahabad Bank, Canara Bank, have also been asked to conduct special Aadhaar seeding camps where Pensioners will be requested to provide their Aadhaar details to their respective banks from which they draw pension so that they can get a digital life certificate – Jeevan Pramaan. The enrolment drive and the Aadhaar seeding camp is being run from May 30 to June 10, 2016. “We hold special enrolment drives to help people who are yet to enrol for Aadhaar. This particular exercise has been initiated to make sure pensioners get an Aadhaar number if they still don’t have one and seed the Aadhaar details of pensioners so that they can get a Jeevan Pramaan,” said Director General & Mission Director of UIDAI, Dr. Ajay Bhushan Pandey. So far over 15.41 Lakh pensioners have already registered for the Aadhaar-enabled Jeevan Pramaan service. PIB

No proposal to do away with the existing procedure of Submitting annual life certificate

No proposal to do away with the existing procedure of Submitting annual life certificate Delay in giving pension benefits There is no such proposal to do away with the existing procedure of Submitting annual life certificate by the pensioner to renew their pension payment. Yes Madam. Department of Pension & Pensioners Welfare has implemented an online system called ‘BHAVISHYA’ for retiring Central Government Civil employees. The system provides for on-line tracking of pension sanction and payment process. Tracking can be done by the individual as well as the administrative authorities for all actions preparatory to grant of pension and other retirement benefits. Facility also exists for tracking payment of subsequent monthly pension. This is in line with the priorities of Government to ensure transparency and accountability in systems and processes.  At present, Bhavishya is implemented in main Secretariat of 83 Ministries/Departments & 23 attached offices involving 794 DDOs. This Department has also given on-site training to all the Drawing Disbursing Officers/Head of Offices/Pay & Accounts Offices and the dealing hands of main Secretariat of all the Ministries/Department. This was stated by the Minister of State in the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions and Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office Dr. Jitendra Singh in a written reply to a question by Shri Satav Rajeev & others in the Lok Sabha today

Irregular Payment of Defence Pension:Failure in Annual identification/Life Certificates.

Irregular Payment of Defence Pension:Failure in Annual identification/Life Certificates.

Office of the Principal Controller of Defence Accounts (Pension),
Draupadi Ghat, Allahabad-211014.

 

Circular No.182

No. AT/Tech/256-V
Dated: 26.11.2015

 

Sub: Irregular Payment of Defence Pension:Failure in Annual identification/Life Certificates.

 

Guidelines/instructions for Annual identification of pensioner and payment on the basis of life certificates are provided in “Defence Pension Payment Instructions (DPPI)-2013” and “Scheme for Payment of Pensions of Defence Pensioners by Public Sector Banks”. Pension Disbursing Authorities (PDAs) including Banks are required to comply with these instructions strictly.

 

However, various cases have come to notice of this office where PDAs have made payment of defence pension without carrying out annual identification of pensioner or without obtaining life certificate from the pensioner. In some cases, PDAs have continued the payment for long period even after demise of pensioner or/and disappearance of pensioner. A few cases of irregular payments made by PDAs resulting in loss to exchequer due to overpayment are elaborated below:-

 

(i) In a particular case, after the death of pensioner on 10.12.2001 which was intimated to the pension paying bank by the son of pensioner. However, the bank continuously credited the pension in pensioner’s account till 2007.The account of pensioner was having a balance of Rs 6, 17,628 as on 15.04.2015

 

(ii) In another case, one bank has made payment to pensioner up to June 2015, where as he was missing since December 2011. FIR of missing of pensioner was lodged with police Station by her spouse on 25.02.2014.

 

(iii) In one more case, one pensioner, who has been residing abroad since 30.06.2001 and not reverted to submit his life certificate for 13 years but bank has made payment of defence pension continuously for 13 years on the basis of attested copy of life certificate.

 

In all these cases PDA has violated the existing provisions of above mentioned Instructions/Schemes, causing heavy loss to exchequer. Such incorrect payments have been viewed seriously by the Ministry of Defence and directed to establish the mechanism to stop the payment of such nature.

 

To overcome ineffectiveness of existing system, introduced in the manual era, of submission of change statement including Annexure D-II (in case PDA is bank) and Form I (if PDA is other than bank) by PDAs showing names of pensioners struck off from the Index Register of Defence Pension Payment, owing to transfer, death, expiry ceasation of pension etc, and also to obtain digital data of life certification from PDAs for carrying out e-audit, development of automation of audit is under process.

 

It is, therefore, requested that e-data of life certificates, submitted by the pensioners/family pensioners in the month of November each year, may now be forwarded/provided to this office by l5th of December of that year positively.

 

As regard, change statement including Annexure D-II / Form I as the case may be, digital data of changed items may also be forwarded to this office.

 

Further, for providing information or help to pensioners/family pensioners on pensionary matter, this office has initialized a TOLL FREE NUMBER 1800-180-5325. However, pensioners/family pensioners are required to provide some information viz PPO No. Service/Account No, date of discharge of pensioner or date of death of pensioner/in case of family pensioner, Records Office/Head Office etc to avoid any delay in his/her help.

 

Therefore, it is also requested that this TOLL FREE NUMBER may be given publicity among the pensioners/family pensioner through your notice board.

 

Sd
(Abhishek Singh)
Asst.CDA (P)

 

Signed copy

Digital life certificates for ex-servicemen

All ex-servicemen and those drawing family pension have to get Aadhaar based biometric verification system – Jeevan Pramaan Digital Life Certificates – to enable them give their annual life certificate without having to physically go to pension disbursing bank/ agency.

 

More details  http://jeevanpramaan.gov.in 

Implementation of “Digital Life Certificate Programme” in respect of Defence civilians and Defence civilian pensioners

 

SPEED POST

Office of the Principal Controller of Defence Accounts (Central Command)
Cariappa Road, Cantt., Lucknow, Pin Code – 226002
Office Phone No. 0522-2451547
Office Fax No. 0522-2451993

No. PT/3088/DLCP/Vol-I

Date: 26/10/2015

To,
1) The Area Accounts (CC)
Allahabad
2) The Area Accounts Office (CC)
Kanpur
3) All AO GE
4) AAO/SO(A)
Pay I,II,III (Local)

Sub:- Implementation of “Digital Life Certificate Programme” – regarding.
Ref:- HQrs Office letter AT/II/2666/NDA-X dated 24/04/2015.

To implement the Digital Life Certificate Programme in respect of Defence civilians and Defence civilian pensioners, it is necessary to get all the pensioners enrolled for Aadhar Card.

 

It is therefore requested to obtain confirmation from the formations/ units whether Defence civilians under their juridictions have been enrolled for Aadhar Card. Please get the data from the units under you jurisdiction and a weakly report may be submitted showing total number of employee enrolled with UIDAI for Aadhal Similar procedure may be adopted for pensioners under their jurisdiction.

Desired information may please be forwarded to this office by speed-post/ return fax immediately, to enable this office to submit the information to CDA (IDS) who is a Nodal Office to act as a registrar with UIDAI.

Sr. Accounts Officer (PT)

Modification in Life Certificate of Pensioners – Acknowledgement to be issued

CPAO instructs banks that Pensioner Life Certificate submitted to Banks has to be acknowledged by the Banks in the prescribed form as it receives complaints frequently to the effect that Life Certificates are misplaced by bank staf  

Finance Ministry advises Banks to issue duly signed acknowledgement to the pensioners while submitting Life Certificate

Department of Expenditure has advised Banks to issue the acknowledgement at the time of submission of Life Certificates by the Pensioners in the prescribed format given below.

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA

MINISTRY OF FINANCE

DEPARTMENT OF EXPENDITURE

CENTRAL PENSION ACCOUNTING OFFICE

TAIKOOT-II, BHIKAJI CAMA PLACE,

NEW DELHl-110066

PHONES: 26174596, 26174456, 26174438

CPAO/IT &Tech/Scheme Booklet/2015-16/1666

16.10.2015

Office Memorandum

Subject:-Modification in the format of Life Certificate -Issue of Acknowledgement to pensioners.

Attention is invited to this office OM No.CPAO/Tech/Simplification/2012-13/325 dated-18.02.2013 directing the banks to allow pensioners/family pensioners to submit the life certificates as well as other certificates to any branch of the bank through which their pension are being disbursed. In this context, several instances of stoppage of payment of pensions have been reported citing non-receipt of life certificate even though the pensioners had submitted their life certificates to the bank, due to misplacement of the life certificate at the bank branches concerned. Instances of some pension paying banks not accepting life certificates given to them by pensioners and directing pensioners to submit the life certificate to CPPC have also been reported causing great inconvenience to pensioners, which results in either stoppage of payment of pension or delay in payment of pension.

In this context, to alleviate the hardship faced by the pensioners, RBI has also instructed all the Agency Banks handling government pension payment, vide Notification No. RBT/2014-15/ 587 DGBA. GAD No. H-5013/ 45.01.001/2014-15 dated-07.05.2015 that on receipt of life certificate submitted in physical form, banks to issue duly signed acknowledgement to the pensioners and to enter the same in their CBS immediately and issue a system generated receipt to serve the twin purpose of acknowledgement to the pensioners as well as real- time updation of records.

To facilitate the bank authorities, CPAO has prescribed a modified format of life certificate providing therewith acknowledgement of the receipt of the life certificate vide Correction Slip No.24 to the Scheme for Payment of Pensions to Central Government Civil Pensioners by Authorized Banks. The acknowledgement is a part of the format of Life Certificate, which can be detached and given to the pensioner by the receiving bank. The format (Annexure) has been circulated to all concerned and the same has been made available on CPAO’s website ‘www.cpao.nic.in’ at the link
“For Banks”–> Guidelines for Master data.

The Chairmen/Chief Executive Directors of Authorised Banks are requested to ensure that their paying branches follow the above instructions scrupulously without fail.

This issues with the approval of Competent Authority

(Vijay Singh)

Sr. Accounts Officer (IT & Tech)

ANNEXURE-XVIl

(See para 15.1page11 of

CPAO’s Scheme Booklet)

Part-A (Every year)

LIFE CERTIFICATE

(To be submitted by Pensioner once a year in November)

Certified that I have seen the pensioner Shri/Smt./Ms._______(Name of Pensioner)
holder of Pension Payment Order No.________ and that he/she is alive on this date.
1. Present address of the pensioner/family pensioner.
2. Telephone/Mobile number (if any).
3. E-mail Address (if any).
Name
Place:
Date:

Designation of Authorised Officer

Seal

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Life Certificate of Pensioner /Family Pensioner of Shri/Smt/Ms.__ (Name of Pensioner) holder of Pension Payment Order No.____ has been
received.

Date :-

Signature .

Name·····················

Stamp of the receiving Bank branch

 

Download Finance Ministry letter No.CPAO/IT &Tech/Scheme Booklet/2015-16/1666 dated 16.10.2015