SOURCE:http://karnmk.blogspot.in/2015/03/cgda-centraliised-pension-disbursement.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+CGENewsTools+(Central+Government+Employee+News+%26amp;+Tools)
CONTROLLER GENERAL OF DEFENCE
ACCOUNTS
CENTRALISED PENSION DISBURSEMENT SYSTEM
CONCEPT PAPER
Ministry of Defence disburses appx Rs. 51,000
crore every year as pension benefits to 24.16 lakh
defence pensioners – both service personnel as well as defence
civilians. While pension sanction is being done in a
centralised way – by PCDA (Pension) Allahabad in r/o Army and defence civilians; by
PCDA (Navy) in r/o Navy personnel and by JCDA (AF) Subroto Park, New Delhi in
r/o Air Force personnel,
pension disbursement is
being carried out by a number of agencies who are working as PDAs
(Pension Disbursing Agencies) – 28 Public Sector and 4
Pvt Sector Banks, 63 DPDOs, State Treasuries and Post Offices.
Banks have the largest number of
pensioners on their roll – appx 18.06 lakh pensioners
or 75% of the total number of defence pensioners. And
they disburse Rs. 3800 crores every month (or Rs. 45,600 crores per annum which
is almost 90% of the total pension
disbursement to defence
pensioners) as pension to
these pensioners. Instances have come to notice where
different practices have been followed by banks or where different
interpretation have been arrived at and implemented for one
government order, resulting in complaints from
pensioners. An analysis of grievances received at the
Ministry or at CGDA office or at PCDA (Pension) office
reveal that more than 95% of the complaints pertain to
pensioners drawing their
pension from the banks. The task of addressing these
grievances and providing services
to pensioners to their complete satisfaction is an
arduous one. This, however, could be changed by adopting a new paradigm for
pension disbursement.
2. This new paradigm is centralised
disbursement of pension.
This simply means disbursing pension from a central
agency viz. Centralised Pension
Disbursement Agency (CPDA) to all the
pensioners.
3. The present system of
pension imbursement is an opaque one in the sense that
it does not easily provide details reg. no of
pensioners, category wise distribution of
pensioners, amount of
pension disbursed in a month and govt’s
pension liability. Collation of the information from various sources is quite
difficult and the output is not always accurate.
4. Further, in the existing system, there is a
multiplicity of PDAs ‐ 29 Banks, 63 DPDOs and a large number (500+) of State
Treasuries. As mentioned earlier, many a times PDAs tend to interpret Govt.
Orders differently. This, in some cases delays the implementation of the order
itself and in some other cases the order gets to be implemented differently by
different PDAs. In both cases, generally, pensioner is the sufferer. There are
other issues/difficulties in the existing pension
disbursement system:‐
I. With multiple PDAs, the system is not
amendable to effective monitoring as well as grievance handling. It makes the
task of all decision makers including the Ministry, a very difficult one.
II. There is a delay in booking the
pension amount to Govt. account. This also makes it
relatively difficult to know the exact pension
liability.
III. Even at a given time, it becomes an
arduous task to exactly find out the number of active defence
pensioners (including categories‐wise) as the
information is to be collated from a large no. of
PDAs.
IV. Maximum
pensioners are drawing
pension from banks. It has been experienced that they
(Banks) do not have dedicated staff to deal with
pensioners’ issues. Also, they are not well conversant
with orders/issues peculiar to Defence pension.
The Proposed System
5. The proposed system of Centralised
disbursement of pension is
not only transparent but easy for information
processing and retrieval.
6. Under the proposed system, after sanctioning
pension and issuing Pension
Payment Order (PPO), the pension sanctioning authority
will forward the PPO and other details – including bank details – of the
pensioner to the Centralised PDA (CPDA) on soft format through a secured
channel. It could be on the CGDA intranet and for enhanced security could also be with digital
signature. The CPDA will process the papers and will initiate first payment as
well as subsequent monthly pension payments for credit
to the pensioners’ bank accounts (as given by the PSA
along with the PPO) through the NEFT/RTGS or the CMP (on‐line payment mechanism
with SBI). Since the CPDA is making payment of pension
– he can directly book the amount to the government account, avoiding any delay
or suspense head booking. For the pensioners, there
will be no change as they would receive pension in
their bank account, as is the status presently. The proposed system only
replaces the multitude of PDAs with a single PDA without affecting the
pensioners’ interest and rather bringing about a
focused delivery mechanism. There are a number of benefits of the proposed
system –
i. Uniform interpretation and implementation of
govt orders ii. Instant booking of pension payment to
govt accounts – giving authorities a true picture of the
pension liability and payment.
ii .........blank...........
iii. Better grievance monitoring system can be
instituted with a single PDA.Easier for everybody.
iv. Centralised database will help in better
exploitation of information and communication
technology for the betterment of services to the
pensioners.
v. There will be no change as far as
pensioners are concerned. They will continue to
receive their pension in their given bank
accounts.
vi. No loss to the banks in terms of accounts
maintenance as they will continue to be the final
pension paying agency.
vii. Future scalability is possible and
relatively simple. For example, a centralised call centre could provide
solutions to the pensioners for their queries or
complaints.
7. In addition to these benefits, the proposed
system will also result into a large saving to the Ministry of Defence (MoD).
Presently, MoD pays Rs. 60 per transaction to Banks; and with 12 regular payments and 4 DA payments in a year, MOD
pays Rs 960 per pensioners per year. For 18.06 lakh
Bank pensioners, this amounts to almost Rs. 180 Cr.
every year. If all pensioners are brought under the
centralised PDA system ‐ where CPDA will credit
pension in pensioners Bank
A/c through NEFT/RTGS ‐ saving of Rs. 180 Crore could be achieved.
Implementation Modalities
8. Phase I can cover all new
pensioners – appx. 80,000 per year – coming into
pension fold. This can be done from a particular date
which can be decided after taking decision on centralised
pension disbursement and
creating necessary IT and Communication infrastructure.
9. In Phase II all DPDO
pensioners can be covered. All original files may be
shifted to the CPDA DPDO‐wise. Given that out of 63 DPDOs, 52 have been
centralised under Project Ashraya (Pension
disbursement system), this is likely to be smoother
phase wherein shifting of files and their appropriate indexing will be the main
activity / focus.
10. In Phase III existing bank
pensioners can be covered depending upon the response
of the banks.
This would be the toughest phase both in terms
of making banks agree to the new model and in database management Banks revenue
loss will also be a big issue from their perspective. As such this phase will
require perseverance and a different strategy (including for database
management) which can be derived and decided later from the success of the first
two phases.
11. An issue which may require a conscious
decision would be whether the centralised disbursement
should be from one location or multi‐location. It is considered that in a
networked environment, location may not be an important factor from the
view‐point of users. However, for the ease and adaptability with the existing
pension set‐up, it is recommended to have three
centres associated with the existing pension
sanctioning authorities, viz. PCDA
(P), Allahabad, PCDA
(N), Mumbai and JCDA (AF), New Delhi. It is also recommended to have a
centralised call centre, which can have access to the complete database of the
three centres of CPDA. The call centre can be co‐ located with one of the three
centres for the purpose of administrative convenience.
Role of DPDOs in the proposed centralised
system
12. DPDOs are Pension Disbursement Agencies
(PDAs) in the exiting set‐up. Each DPDO is a distinct PDA. Presently, 63 DPDOs –
51 in northern India and 12 in Southern India (Eastern central and Western India
have no DPDOs) – are working as PDAs for 4.7 lakh pensioners.
13. If we divide the role of a DPDO in terms of
(i) processing of monthly pension payments and (ii) identification exercise
(which is not restricted to any specific month (e.g. November for bank
pensioners) and continues for the whole year) then it can be stated that in the
proposed CPDA paradigm, role of DPDOs will not be there for first part (i.e.
payment processing). However, they can be effectively used for the second part
‐ identification of pensioners. This would mean that DPDOs would need to be
remodelled as service centres for pensioners/ which will carry out their annual
identification, accept change requests/applications on behalf of CPDA (for cases
related to re‐marriage, re‐ employment, death, Bank account changes etc.) and
can also act as grievance handling /settlement centre as they would be linked
with the CPDA server and can have a higher protocol communication with the CPDA
call centre. It is
considered that in the proposed model ‐ one
DPDO may only require one AO, one AAO (or two AAOs) and one MTS ‐ all
proficient on the new system. Savings achieved in manpower (to be assessed) can
be used for opening up a few more service centres in areas where pensioner
concentration is relatively very high or in existing offices of DAD or even with
the Zila Sainik Board Offices.
Infrastructure requirements
14. To start the work
at the CPDA, it is assessed that manpower strength of one IDAS, One AO, two
AAOs, 4 Adrs and 2 MTS would be sufficient and can even last for the first two
phases with 2‐4 additional Adrs. It is assessed that this manpower can be spared
from the existing resources of the organization of CDA (PD). For more Click
here
Read more: http://karnmk.blogspot.com/2015/03/cgda-centraliised-pension-disbursement.html#ixzz3VUaAlwdL
