DIRECT PENSION PAYMENT:
SOME TEETHING PROBLEMS
The Prime Minister himself launched SAMPANN on 29-12-2018 to ensure speedy payment of pension and quick redressal of grievances from pensioners. As part of it the Dept. of Telecom, through CCA offices, introduced the Direct Pension Payment System for the new retirees. Almost all CCA offices have started it.
CGCA:
A new post of Controller General of Communication Accounts was created in 2018. CCAs and Pr.CCAs have to report to CGCA.Awebsite –www.cgca.gov.in – was also launched. It is linked to websites of all the 28 CCAs in the country. This is also a welcome step.
SOME TEETHING TROUBLES:
Now, pension and pensionary benefits are being credited every month in the account of new pensioners from the month of March in most of the circles. Final settlement of GPF is not part of SAMPANN. However, during the last two months the BSNL failed to remit the amount and hence the final settlement of those retiring in the month of August 2019 may be affected.
MIGRATION OF EARLIER PENSIONERS:
The intention was to migrate all existing (earlier) DoT/BSNL pensioners to SAMPANN. It has not yet taken place completely. In Kerala circle 67% of pensioners draw pension through bank and 33% through post office.In other circles it is just opposite as many pensioners live in rural areas where banking facility is poor. The banks maintain data of their pension accounts. Still, in this era of digitization, many banks have not shared the data with DoT. Of late, the DoT has started the work with one bank. It may take few more months to complete the work related to all pensioners drawing pension through banks. Cases of those receiving pension through post offices will further be delayed as IndiaPost does not have full data.
DELAY IN POST OFFICES:
At many places pensioners did not get their pension from post offices on the last working days in May and June 2019. The Staff in Post offices told pensioners that “pension was not credited by the Centralized Pension Processing Centre at Mysore”. In fact, there is no such CPPC at Mysore for all Post offices in the country. The work is centralized in DAP offices, Director of Accounts, Posts in each circle. The Tata Consultancy Service (TCS) provides technical support, from their office at Mysore. In the software being used by CCAs and some banks there is a provision “not to pay before…th”. So they can credit the pension amount on any date conveniently which will be released only on the specified date. But, in the soft ware supplied by TCS to India post this provision is not available. So the staff in DAP offices (at some places only) came at 2 AM on the last working day in June 2019 and started crediting the pension. In those circles people got the pension on that day itself. In other Circles where the work was started at 9 AM they could not enter the network system as it was jammed! That caused delay in May and June. It is reported that India post is updating the system with the help of TCS. Let us hope that it will be improved. When some changes are effected in procedure there will be some problems.