No.1/20/2011-P&PW(E)
Government of India
Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions
(Department of Pension & Pensioners’ Welfare)
New Delhi, the 15th November, 2011
OFFICE MEMORANDUM
The Minutes of the meeting held on 3rd November, 2011 at ICAR, Krishi Bhavan, New Delhi with the officers of the Government Departments/Ministries regarding issue of revised PPOs in respect of Pre-2006 Pensioners/Family Pensioners under the Chairmanship of Secretary (Pension) are circulated herewith.
sd/-
(D.K. Solanki)
Under Secretary to the Government of India
MINUTES OF THE MEETING HELD ON 3rd November, 2011 AT NEW DELHI WITH THE OFFICERS OF THE GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS / MINISTRIES REGARDING ISSUE OF REVISED PPOs IN RESPECT OF PRE-2006 PENSIONERS/FAMILY PENSIONERS
A meeting was held on 3rd November, 2011 at 3:30 PM in ICAR Committee Room, Ground Floor, Krishi Bhavan, New Delhi under the Chairmanship of Shri Ramesh C. Misra, Secretary (Pension,AR&PG) with the officials of 16 Departments/Ministries having maximum number of pre-2006 pensioners/family pensioners and the 4 Ministries/Departments outside the domain of CPAO, viz.. Ministries of Defence and Railways and the Departments of Telecommunications and Posts. The Controller General of Accounts (CGA), Shri C.R. Sundaramurti was also available for the meeting. The objective of this meeting was to review the progress made by various civil and non-civil Ministries and to identify and avoid the bottlenecks in the process of revision of PPOs in respect of pre-2006 pensioners.
2. The list of participants is at Annexure — I.
3. At the outset, the Chairperson welcomed all the participants and briefed them about the background and objective behind convening of this meeting. The Chairperson expressed concern over the slow progress made by the Ministries/Departments in this regard resulting in delay in the revision of PPOs. He informed that the matter was last discussed in the Standing Committee of Voluntary Agencies (SCOVA) meeting held on 21.9.11. At that time, the number of revised PPOs issued finally by the CPAO was 73,050 as on 5th September, 11. In their latest report, the number shown as on 20th October, 11 is 85727. The issue of 12677 revised authorities during a period of one and a half month suggests that there is some improvement. However, there is scope for improvement.
4. The Chairperson pointed out that out of 6,46,872 (total pre-2006 pensioners), there are 158970 pre-1990 pensioners, of which 1,13,029 are from the Ministries/Departments of the Gol. As per CPAO, there was a pendency of 99.5% in these cases as on 5th September, 2011. A difficulty in respect of pre-1990 cases that has come to the notice is that for the purpose of determining the quantum of the qualifying service, the date of joining of the Government servant has been made a mandatory field in the CPAO’s software and a revised PPO cannot be issued if this field is kept blank. It appears that in the absence of any record, the pensioners are being asked to supply documentary proof in support of the date of joining declared by them, which some of them are perhaps not in a position to provide.
5. The Chairperson observed, which was also agreed to by the CGA, that the date of joining is not an important information for calculating the qualifying service as it may be reduced by the intervening periods of absence from duty and in any case it has no effect on the determination of family pension. Therefore, it was decided that date of joining should not be kept as a mandatory field in the software. He further added that as suggested in the SCOVA meeting, the Ministries/Departments may like to consider augmenting their manpower for expeditiously completing this exercise within a time-frame.
6. The CGA pointed out that the authorities concerned in the administrative Ministries/Departments are required to send the updated pension papers to concerned PAOs so that the revised authority could be forwarded by the PAOs to the CPAO for expeditious action. He further mentioned that the role of the CPAO starts only when PAO of the concerned Ministry/Department submits the revised pension payment authority of the pre-2006 Pensioners to the CPAO for onward transmission to the Banks with the special seal of authority.
7. Thereafter, the status of revision of PPOs by the Ministries/Departments was reviewed on the basis of inputs received from them as well as the CPAO. A statement received from the CPAO on the status of revision of pension cases of pre-2006 pensioners and family pensioners (position as on 20/10/2011) of the 16 largest Ministries/Departments is placed at Annexure A.
8. As against the figure of total 2,08,511 pre-2006 pensioners/family pensioners and 38754 number of PPOs shown already revised in the statement by the CPAO, the representative of Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) informed that they sent 250 PPOs to the concerned PAOs. The representative from the MHA was informed that they would also have to review the positions of various organizations like BSF, CISF etc. under them and was asked to come prepared in the next meeting with all information about all the units/offices under their administrative control.
9. Ministry of Urban Development pointed out that response received from the pensioners was very poor and they received only 58 applications from the pensioners/family pensioners so far even though CPAO published an advertisement on 3.9.11 across the country. The Chairperson observed that the Ministry may put up advertisement to elicit responses from the pensioners. It was finally decided that the Department of Pension and PW would bring out a model advertisement next month which may be used by individual Ministry/Department. The advertisement may also spell out the utility of the revision of PPO to the individual pensioner/family pensioner. It was also agreed that the advertisement shall also be posted on the web-site of respective Ministry/Department. It is also agreed that all the Banks may be directed by the Reserve Bank of lndia/CPAO to seek details of family from all pensioners/ family pensioners at the time of receiving life certificates from them in the month of November.
10. As against the position indicated in the statement of the CPAO, Department of Atomic Energy informed that they have completed 55% cases. They have been writing letters to the pensioners as they have set a target of revising 1000 cases per month and completing the whole exercise before 3lst March, 2012. In view of the satisfactory progress, it was decided not to call the Department of Atomic Energy for review in future.
11. CBEC raised the issue that some of the Banks, especially, PNB is not sending Annexure III which has been a cause of delay. Age and other details of family pensioners are not available and therefore the cases cannot be processed further. CBEC was informed that all the authorities concerned will accept the attested copies of documents such as Election ID, PAN card, matriculation certificate, passport, CGHS card, driving licence or the Aadhar card submitted by the pensioner/family pensioner. However, there may be cases where the pensioner/family pensioner is unable to produce any of the above documents but has some other documentary evidence. In such an event, a decision taken by the administrative Ministry/Department shall be final.
12. Ministry of Information & Broadcasting’s information differed from that provided by the CPAO substantially. They state to have done 1526 cases (16.5%) out of a total of 9232 cases as against 1050 cases (6%) out of 17364 shown by the CPAO. It was decided to review the matter in the next meeting.
13. There was mismatch in figures given by the Department of Economic Affairs, Department of Revenue, Ministry of Human Resources Development and the Ministry of Agriculture on the one hand and the CPAO on the other hand. To sort out the matter, it was decided to call all the Departments to come with their respective figures for more fruitful review in the next meeting.
14. Ministry of Civil Aviation informed that 700 cases sent by them to the CPAO were not taken into account by the CPAO. Further, they are confident of meeting the deadline of 31st March, 2012 set by them. Keeping the progress made and the commitment shown, it was decided that the Ministry of Civil Aviation need not be called for the next meeting.
15. Similarly, keeping in the view that more than 50% cases of the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution pertain to the Food Corporation of India which belong to the IDA pattern, it was decided that they need not be called for the next meeting as their pendency does not need review.
16. Ministry of Railways informed that they have a total of 11.81 lakh cases, 8.72 Lakh pension cases and 3.09 Iakh family pension cases. They published advertisement in the newspapers and received 3.99 lakh applications out of which 2.68 lakh PPOs have already been issued. Chairman, Railway Board has written to GMs to form teams of welfare workers and Depot in-charges to visit pensioners for their individual verification, depute Personnel Inspectors to visit pre-2006 pensioners and get complete information, create special cells to receive and process the applications, deputing more staff to complete the work without further delay. The RBI has also been requested to instruct Banks to obtain information from the pensioners in the month of November along with the life certificates.
17. Ministry of Defence informed that they were ready with 1 lakh cases out a total of 17 Iakhs. It was informed that all forms etc. have been standardized and the process is going to pick up speed soon. Department of Telecommunications has revised 15,000 cases out of the total 33,000. Department of Posts has revised 2.21 lakh cases of the total 2,30,743. They expect to clear the 4% pending cases by 31st December, 2011.
18. In view of this, the above-mentioned 4 Ministries/Department, which are outside the CPAO network, need not be called for the next meeting. However, they would continue to update the Department of Pension & Pensioners’ Welfare of the progress made from time to time so that DOP&PW’s data is updated.
19. No one from CBDT, Ministry of Personnel, Ministry of Mines, the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare and the Department of Science & Technology attended the meeting. The Chairperson instructed that the matter be taken up with the Chairman, CBDT and the respective Secretaries of these Ministries/Departments.
20. In the closing remarks, the Chairperson re-emphasized the seriousness of the matter and directed that all the Departments of the Ministries should be represented in the next meeting individually. The CPAO will provide the information of each Department separately. The CPAO will also amend the software so that date of joining does not remain a mandatory field for pre-1990 cases.
The meeting ended with a vote of thanks to the Chair.
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