Guidelines for Pensioners: Payment of pension through Authorised Banks

Guidelines for Pensioners: Payment of pension through Authorised Banks

Payment of pension through Authorised Banks

In case of re-employment in any Central or State Government /autonomous bodies/Public Sector Undertakings, please submit the full facts of the same to your PDA immediately after its occurrence. In case of non-reemployment, a declaration to this effect should be given to your PDA periodically (once in a year in the month of May positively).

Disbursement of Government Pension by Agency Banks

Introduction
Payment of pension to retired government employees, including payment of basic pension, increased Dearness Relief (DR), and other benefits as and when announced by the governments, is governed by the relevant schemes prepared by concerned Ministries/Departments of the Government of India and State Governments.

This Master Circular consolidates important instructions on the subject issued by the Reserve Bank till June 30, 2015. It does not replace or supersede such existing government instructions. In case of any doubt or apparent contradiction, agency banks may be guided by the relevant government instructions.

Various circulars issued in this connection by the Reserve Bank of India are summarised hereunder for information.

General Instructions

(a) Government orders on DR, etc. on websites

2. In order to obviate the time lag between issue of DR orders and payment of DR to the beneficiary and to render expeditious service to senior citizens, the following action is required to be taken:

As soon as the sanction of Dearness Relief at revised rates is received from Ministry of Finance, Orders for payment of Dearness Relief to pensioners at revised rates are issued and the copies of such orders are immediately sent to Heads of all Agency Banks by e-mail as well as by FAX with instructions to take necessary action for expeditious payment of Dearness Relief.

The orders are put on website of Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievance and Pensions (http://www.persmin.nic.in)

Copies of orders are also sent by post to Heads of all Agency Banks and published in leading newspapers by Indian Banks’ Association.

Pension paying agency banks should act on the copies of the orders supplied by Government to the Head Offices and/or Regional Offices of authorised banks in the State headquarters or hosted on the website of the State Government.

The Controlling Offices/ Head Offices of agency banks should closely monitor and supervise timely and correct disbursement of Government pension to eligible pensioners.

(b) Nomination
3. With a view to avoiding inconvenience to pensioners, all pension paying branches to accept Nomination Forms ‘A’ or ‘B’ as the case may be, submitted by Central Civil/Railway pensioners for the payment of arrears of pension to the heir(s).

4. In the case of Central Civil and Railway pensioners, the pension paying banks should endorse the names of nominees as per nomination forms ‘A’ and ‘B’ on the front page of the pass book and the branches may be advised to ensure that the procedure laid down in Schemes for disbursement of pension to pensioners by public sector banks are followed scrupulously.

(l) Digital Life Certificate
17. As per the present pension scheme, pensioners are required to furnish a life certificate to the pension disbursing bank every year in November.

In view of the difficulties faced by pensioners in submission of these certificates, and in order to alleviate these difficulties, the Government of India has since launched “Jeevan Pramaan”, a digital life certificate based on Aadhaar Biometric Authentication on November 10, 2014. In order to facilitate Jeevan Pramaan, a web portal (jeevanpramaan.gov.in) was launched on November 10, 2014.

All agency banks disbursing government pension may take necessary steps to implement and benefit from the scheme and issue necessary instructions to all their branches concerned and dealing staff.

They are requested to work towards creating awareness about this facility amongst their pensioner customers through their branches, websites and other means. Banks may also suitably amend the FAQs on pension payments.

18. There have been complaints that life certificates submitted over the counter of pension paying branches are misplaced causing delay in payment of monthly pensions.

In order to alleviate the hardships faced by pensioners, agency banks were instructed to mandatorily issue duly signed acknowledgements. They were also requested to consider entering the receipt of life certificates in their CBS and issue a system generated acknowledgement which would serve the twin purpose of acknowledgement as well as real time updation of records.