Excelsior Correspondent
NEW DELHI, Oct 23: Governance reforms initiated by this Government since 2014 have a far reaching positive social impact, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Science & Technology; MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh said here today.
Administrative initiatives under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, such as the Pre-Retirement Counselling workshops, Anubhav Awards and Pension Adalat have ensured timely disbursal of pensionary benefits to the large number of retiring employees every year, he said.
The Union Minister was addressing the “Anubhav” Awards – 2023 presentation ceremony organised by by Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare (DoP&PW), at Vigyan Bhawan here. Later he also participated in the All India Pension Adalat & Pre-Retirement Counselling (PRC) Workshop .
Dr Jitendra Singh said the ‘Whole of Government’ approach is evident from the fact that even during the Covid pandemic years there was not a single case of delay in pension payment due to the uninterrupted services provided by the Department of Posts.
The Bhavishya portal has also evolved over time and technology is being applied by the Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare (DoP&PW) to ensure that the retirees are handed over Pension Payment Orders well in time before superannuation, he said.
The Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions Minister said that banks are providing doorstep service for submission of Digital Life Certificates (DLC) annually to retired employees. Now, the Govt of India is the first to use the Aadhaar based Face Identification Technology. Due to such technologies, the senior citizens do not have to go through the tedious process of submitting the life certificate. Most of the functioning has been converted online and in order to bring in transparency, accountability and citizen participation, the human interface has been reduced to the bare minimum, he said.
Dr Jitendra Singh said that the Modi Government has scrapped more than 1,500 redundant laws since 2014 and provisions such as self-attestation introduced. Working with the principle of “Minimum Government-Maximum Governance”, the aim of Good Governance is to bring Ease of Living to the common man, he said.
On the occasion, Dr Jitendra Singh launched the National DLC Portal for Nation-wide DLC Campaign 2.0, Integrated Pensioners’ Portal with Punjab National Bank(PNB) and Bank of Baroda and unveiled a Compendium of clarifications/ case studies. He also gave away the Anubhav Awards 2023 to felicitate 13 awardees for their write-ups.
Dr Jitendra Singh said the Anubhav portal, launched at the initiative of the Prime Minister, has been a huge success. The campaign has resulted in publication of 1901 Anubhav write-ups which is highest in number since its inception in March 2015.
Later, Dr Jitendra Singh chaired the All-India Pension Adalat. Pension Adalats have become an effective medium of prompt disposal of long-pending pension disputes, he said. Of the 45 cases brought before the Pension Adalat, 30 cases were resolved.
Till date eight Pension Adalats have been conducted by DoP&PW and out of 24, 671 taken up in the Pension Adalat, 17,551 grievances were resolved (71%) by the different Ministries/ Departments/ Organisation which participated in this initiative.
Speaking on the occasion, Secretary, DoP&PW V. Srinivas, said the Department will be organising Nation-wide Digital Life Certificate campaign 2.0 in the month of November, 2023 to enable 70 lakh Central Government pensioners to submit life certificates. DLC camps will be organised in 500 locations in 100 cities across India in collaboration of 17 banks.
Additional Secretary, DoP&PW, S N Mathur; Atul Kumar Goel, MD & CEO, PNB and Debadatta Chanda, MD & CEO, Bank of Baroda also addressed the workshop.
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