Technical glitch puts pensioners in trouble

The pensioners here are running from pillar to post to get the interest amount from their Senior Citizens Saving Scheme (SCSS) account at post offices in Mysuru. Most of the pensioners have not been able to draw the interest amount since two months. The Postal department has introduced Core System Integration (CSI), an online transaction system, for senior citizens and pensioners, to draw their interest on their deposits in its offices across the district.

P Gopalakrishna, a pensioner, depends on the interest from his SCSS account for his monthly expenses. “I have maintained my SCSS account at Datta Nagar post office since many years. But, from the past two months, I could not withdraw the monthly interest due to technical issues in CSI,” he says. Like him, many senior citizens, who depend on interest from SCSS or special deposits, are inconvenienced without money. “I am facing financial hardships from past two months. I don’t have any other source of income to maintain my family,” Gopalakrishna said. A majority of pensioners depend on the interest amount to fulfill their daily needs.

Owing to the problems in the CSI, many SCSS account holders could not renew their accounts. The Postal department calculates and credits interest on the SCSS account, once in three months, immediately after they attain maturity. But, the software was designed to calculate accounts only during month-end and not in the middle of the month, even if the account attains maturity.

Thus accounts matured in the middle of the month are not updating. However, Senior Superintendent of Posts, D Shivaiah said that as the system is new, initially, there were some issues in calculating and depositing interest amount to the accounts. Now, there are no problems and many account holders are drawing their money, he said.

The superintendent said, there may be issues with one or two accounts and the department will address them, if the account holders bring the problems to the notice of the department.