Online tracking of pension likely soon

PM expresses concern over delay in tackling issue

Delay in clearing pension-related issues has prompted Prime Minister Narendra Modi to direct the authorities to set up an e-tracking system.

The Ministry of Personnel, Pension and Public Grievances has taken up the issue seriously, and is trying to find a suitable online solution for it. The issue of delays was discussed at a recent meeting to review the status of Aadhaar-based authentication of life certificates for pensioners.

Alok Rawat, the secretary of the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances, chaired the meeting, attended by Railway Board Chairman A K Mittal as well as top officers of the Departments of Expenditure and Telecommunications, and the National Informatics Centre.

Officials are now looking at the possibility of using an Online Tracking System for Pension Sanction and Payment (Bhavishya), which was adopted by the Railway and Defence Ministries, and the Departments of Telecommunications and Posts.

“The prime minister had expressed concern over the delay in clearing pension-related matters, and suggested e-tracking of the cases. We are working on it,” said a senior official.

At the meeting, the issue of “glaring discrepancies” in data available with banks that disburse pension was also discussed.  It said there was a large number of pensioners above the age of 100, which the official said is “unusual”.

“The Department of Financial Services has once again been asked to instruct banks to get their data cleaned on priority,” said the minutes of the meeting.

Earlier, the Union Home Ministry had found that there were discrepancies in the disbursement of pension to freedom fighters.  It also found that pension was given to more than 3,000 pensioners for many years after their death.

Payment of wrong amount of pension to many pensioners and disbursement of dependent-family pension to ineligible dependants not covered under the scheme have come to the government's notice.