Verify employees service 5 yrs before retirement:Govt to depts

All central government departments have been asked to verify services of employees working under them mandatorily five years before retirement in order to check delay in processing pension cases.

It has been observed that processing of pension cases of the employees retiring from government service quite often gets delayed on account of issues relating to verification of service from time to time by authorities, the Personnel Ministry said in a directive.

Existing rules provided for issuing of a certificate regarding qualifying service after completion of 18 years of service of an employee and again five years before the date of his or her retirement.

The rules further provide that verification done under it shall be treated as final and shall not be reopened except when necessitated by a subsequent change in the rules and orders governing the conditions under which the service qualifies for pension, the Ministry said.

"It has been noticed that the certificates regarding qualifying service are not invariably issued to the government servant as required under the rules. All ministries, departments etc. are therefore requested to bring these provisions to the notice of Heads of Offices and Pay and Accounts Officers for strict compliance.

"Non-compliance of this statutory requirements may be viewed seriously," it said.

A report has also been sought from all the ministries on the status of service verification of employees already done or pending by October 15, the order said.

There are about 50 lakh central government employees and 56 lakh pensioners.