Controller General of Defence Accounts Arvind R. Kaushal has said that several information technology (IT) initiatives have been planned for effectively redressing the grievances of defence pensioners in the country.
Inaugurating a two-day 130th Defence Pension Adalat at the Rubco Auditorium here on Wednesday, Mr. Kaushal said that disbursement of defence pension to 24 lakh defence pensioners in the country was a huge task. “As there is no single solution to solve all the grievances, we have taken recourse to IT solutions,” he said.
The initiatives included digital life certificates, e-PPOs (pension payment orders) and dedicated call centre for pensioners. All the future revisions would be done centrally by the pension sanctioning authorities to eliminate mistakes and delays.
Reaching out
Each of the cases considered at the adalat represented a failure of the agencies that could not pay what should have been paid, Mr. Kaushal said adding that the objective of the adalat was to hear from the frontline.
The endeavour of the Defence Accounts Department would be to reach out to the pensioners, he said. He further said that the implementation of ‘one rank one pension’ scheme expected to be announced by the government shortly would significantly increase the pension amount of ex-service pensioners.
Rajesh Sharma, Controller of Defence Accounts (CDA), Chennai, chaired the function. Principal CDA G.D. Pungle (Allahabad) said that almost the entire work of issuing corrigendum PPOs to all the pre-2006 pensioners indicating the revised pension had been completed.
Maj. Gen. R.G. Krishnan, Chief of Staff, Headquarters, South India Area, Chennai, detailed the steps taken by the armed forces for the welfare of ex-servicemen and their kin. The adalat will continue till 5 p.m. on Thursday.
130th Defence Pension Adalat under way in Kannur
