Various procedures are under consideration and adoption by the banks while releasing pensions or seeking certificates from pensioners at various periodicity, the Personnel Ministry stated.
The ministry to the chairman and managing directors (CMDs) have introduced new guidelines of the pension disbursing banks to create awareness among Central Pension Processing Centre(CPPC)/bank branches on revised norms and guidelines in this regard.
The strategy was a follow-up of an examination of the complaints got by the Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare under the Personnel Ministry.
“It has been observed that updated and consolidated instructions will help improve the processing of pensioner’s requests by banks and others,” the department claimed in an order issued on Friday.
Therefore, an attempt has been applied, to merge applicable guidelines given by the Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare every now and then as a pension, it said.
“These banks are adopting different procedures while releasing pension/ family pension or seeking declarations/certificates from pensioners/family pensioners at different periodicity,” the department said while issuing the merged guidelines.
The figure amounts to 65.26 lakh Central government pensioners who have registered.
These incorporate rules are on various issues, including the banks demanding the spouses to open separate financial balances for getting family pension, entries of life certificate, and disability certificate, and on the necessity of family retired person to submit ‘structure 14’ on the death of a beneficiary, among others.
The sum total of what banks have been encouraged to agree to these consolidated rules and to give wide exposure by setting up these guidelines on their sites and furthermore on the notification sheets of the parts of the bank, and so forth.
“On the death of a pensioner, the spouse is not required to submit form 14, if he/she was having a joint account with the pensioner and authorization for payment of family pension exists in the Pension Payment Order (PPO) in his/her favor,” the guidelines said.
“In such cases, a spouse will be required to provide only a copy of the death certificate to the pension paying branch in order to commence his/her family pension,” they said.
Pensions dispensing bank will take into account the family of retired people dependent on the data outfitted in PPO and its own Know Your Customer methodology without demanding him/her to truly introduce himself/herself in the paying bank, the office stated, referring to its guidelines issued in September 2013. Banks won’t demand opening another record when the spouse already has a shared account with the candidate and authorization for family pension exists in the PPO in their favor, the consolidated guidelines said.
These banks disbursing the pensions will also accept Aadhaar-enabled digital life certificate “Jeevan Pramaan”, according to the guidelines.
Moreover, pensioners who are 80 years or more can submit their life certificates in the long stretch of October. Life certificates must be presented by each retired person/family beneficiary in November every year.
“No fresh certificate of disability would be required in the case of a child with a permanent disability,” the guidelines said.
According to the instructions, a disabled child will be required to self-certify each year that he/she has not begun earning his/her livelihood, according to the instructions.
On the off chance that family pensions have been sanctioned to a disabled child and the disability was temporary, the respective guardian shall issue a disability testament once in every five years to declare that he/she continues experiencing the disability so as to proceed with the family pension, the rules said.
“At the time of commencement of family pension, an undertaking will be obtained from him/her to the effect that in case of his/her remarriage, he/she will report the fact to the pension disbursing bank promptly,” they said.
Nevertheless, the childless widow of an expired government servant and disabled child of a retired person/government worker will continue to receive the pension fund even if they get married, according to the rules.
A family beneficiary, other than a spouse, needs to present a revelation of non-marriage/non-re-marriage every six months. The family pension is stopped on the off chance that he/she gets remarried.
The pension disbursing banks have been directed by The Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare to send SMS or emails to all their pensioners on October 24, November 1, November 15, and November 25 every year as a reminder for submission of their annual life certificates by November 30.
“The department directed all pension disbursing banks to make an exception list as on 15 December every year of those pensioners who fail to submit their life certificate and issue another SMS/email to them for submitting the life certificate,” the guidelines clarify.
“The bank in addition will also ask such pensioners through SMS/email whether they are interested in submission of life certificate through a chargeable door-step service, on a nominal charge not exceeding Rs60,” they said.
