NEW DELHI: The Centre has implemented several initiatives in 2024 aimed at enhancing the welfare of pensioners, streamlining grievance redressal, and promoting digitisation in pension processes, according to the Department of Pension & Pensioners’ Welfare (DoPPW) year-end review released on Sunday.
The largest-ever campaign for improving pensioners' welfare was conducted during the year in India from November 1 to 30, 2024 in 800 cities across the nation with 1, 950 camps and 1, 100 Nodal Officers, generating 1.30 crore Digital Life Certificates (DLCs).
As many as 39.18 lakh DLCs representing more than 30 percent were generated using face authentication technology, a 200 times increase over the DLC 2.0 Campaign. This proved particularly beneficial for elderly pensioners with faded fingerprints, differently abled individuals facing mobility challenges, and pensioners living in rural and remote areas. Pensioners aged 80 and above submitted 8 lakh DLCs.
Among the banks, 11 lakh DLCs were generated by the State Bank of India, 7.5 lakh DLCs generated by IPPB, and 2.75 lakh DLCs were generated by PNB.
The review further states that the 100-day action plan of the Department of Pension and Pensioners Welfare was successfully implemented during the year. Under this action plan, the month-long campaign for effective redressal of family pensioners' grievances redressed 1, 737 family pensioners' grievances.
Instructions were also issued for enhancement of the maximum limit of retirement gratuity and death gratuity for central government employees from Rs 20 lakh to Rs 25 lakh on reaching the Dearness Allowance rates to 50 per cent.
The review also highlights that over 1.06 lakh grievances from pensioners across 90 Ministries and Departments were resolved which included 21, 860 family pension cases and 9, 818 super senior pensioner cases.
The average grievance resolution time has been reduced from 36 days (2018) to 26 days (2024). Only 0.54 per cent of grievances remain pending for more than six months.
Monthly reports on grievances, ranking Ministries/Departments based on their performance in grievance redressal, were introduced during the year. The new features include tracking grievances based on their source (online, postal, or call centre) and average disposal time for resolution.
Besides, a new Single Unified Pension Application Form 6-A was launched by merging 9 pension forms into an integrated single pension form 6A under CCS (Pension) Rules 2021. As many as 3, 200 pensioners submitted their pension forms on Bhavishya using Form 6A which has simplified the process and added to the convenience of pensioners.