Srinagar, July 10:Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Science & Technology; MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh inaugurated bankers’ awareness workshop at Srinagar today. The two-day workshop is organised by Department of Pension & Pensioners’ Welfare (DoPPW) for officers of State Bank of India at Winter Hall, Sher-i-Kashmir International Convention Center, Srinagar.
The objective of the workshops is to spread awareness of the various rules and procedures relevant for Pension Disbursing Banks and also the steps being taken by the Government of India to ensure “Ease of Living” for Pensioners.
Speaking on the occasion, Dr Singh congratulated DoPPW for organizing the workshop at Srinagar. He said that in the present times, the number of pensioners is greater than that of those in service and this is a challenging task for the government.
He said that the present government is committed to the cause of pensioners welfare and a testimony to that fact is that a number of obsolete laws have been done away with. The Minister added that the vacuum that existed in the case of pension reforms has now been filled.
Dr Singh said that over 37 lakh digital life certificates have been issued so far since the face recognition technology has been introduced and all efforts are being made to put the advancements in technology to the benefit of pensioners.
The Minister said that a country wide campaign will be launched in the month of November 2023 for issuing of digital life certificates through face recognition technology and the details for the same are being worked out at the moment. He said that the campaign will cover over 100 cities throughout the length and breadth of the country.
The workshop also focuses on the issues faced by Bank officials in handling the processes and pensioners’ grievances and note any suggestions forwarded by the Bank officials.
Under the aegis of Dr. Jitendra Singh, Union Minister of State for Personnel, PG and Pensions, to enhance “Ease of Living” of pensioners and family pensioners, Department of Pension & Pensioners Welfare, Government of India has taken a number of welfare measures in pension policy as well as in digitization of pension related processes. There have been a number of amendments in the pension rules and several clarificatory orders/ instructions have been issued during the last 50 years. These have been consolidated and brought out as Central Civil Service (Pension) Rules, 2021 in December, 2021.
Since the major Pension Disbursing Authorities are banks, the DoPPW has started a series of such Awareness Workshops for Central Pension Processing Centers (CPPCs) of Banks as well as their field functionaries handling pension related work in the bank.
More than 50 officers from CPPCs and pension dealing branches of State Bank of India are participating in this workshop. Bankers’ Awareness workshops, on similar lines, will be conducted in collaboration with other Pension Disbursing Banks in 2023-24. The workshop is also expected to firm up a road-map towards integrating 17 banks with the single-window Integrated Pensioners’ Portal of DoPPW with the objective of providing pensioners with a host of services related to pension and banking. Dr Jitendra Singh has inaugurated integration of SBI pension seva portal with Integrated Pensioners Portal in October, 2022.
