Centre holds awareness programme about pension rules, procedures

The Centre on Monday started a two-day program in Rajasthan's Udaipur to inform central government pensioners about various rules and procedures for disbursement of pensions.

It will also update the field functionaries about the changes that take place from time to time through various amendments in the policy and procedures.

''The Department of Pension and Pensioners' Welfare (DoPPW), under the Union Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, has started a series of awareness programs for central pension processing centers and field functionaries handling pension-related work in the bank,'' an official statement said.

Since the major pension disbursing authorities are banks, the first such program in the series is being held for officers of the State Bank of India (SBI) on June 20 and 21 June at Udaipur, covering the northern region of the country, said the statement issued by the Personnel Ministry.

Bankers' awareness program was inaugurated on Monday by V Srinivas, Secretary, DoPPW.

''The objective of these programs is to spread awareness of the various rules and procedures regarding disbursement of pension to central government pensioners as well as to update the field functionaries about the changes that take place from time to time through various amendments in the policy and procedures,'' the statement said.

The purpose of the program is also to understand issues faced by bank officials in handling these processes and pensioners' grievances, it said.

There have been several amendments to the pension rules and several clarificatory orders and instructions have been issued during the last 50 years and these have been compiled and brought out as Central Civil Service (Pension) Rules, 2021 in December 2021, according to the statement.

Secretary, V Srinivas stressed providing a seamless experience to pensioners through the creation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) enabled integrated pensioners portal, linkage of Department of Pension & Pensioners Welfare portal Bhavishya and SBI portals, and creation of chatbot to ensure seamless interaction between pensioners, government and banker.

''The department in collaboration with SBI may set up a technology team for creating the above digital systems as the first deliverables after this program,'' the statement said.

Utmost attention is to be given to process and people-related grievances by SBI, it said.

Four such awareness programs will be conducted in collaboration with SBI to cover the whole country.

On similar lines, awareness programs will be conducted in collaboration with other pension disbursing banks in 2022-23, the statement added.