STATE TIMES NEWS
NEW DELHI: Union Minister, Dr Jitendra Singh on Thursday said that India’s population dividend could be an instrument of nation building. Apart from youth, the elder citizens including the pensioners could also be channelised for building a strong and prosperous India.
Addressing a programme commemorating “9 Years of Department of Pension & Pensioners Welfare” at Vigyan Bhawan here, Dr Jitendra said, if the 70 percent of the population of India is below 40 years of age, this is also a new reality that the actual number of 60 plus is increasing fast in India and they are not only fit and agile, but have a vast experience of administrative and sectoral sectors to contribute to India’s “Vision of 2047”.
Dr Jitendra pointed out that radical pension reforms and change in rules and regulations were carried out at the behest of Prime Minister Narendra Modi since 2014 in response to emerging societal needs.
Dr Jitendra also informed that at the behest of the Prime Minister, the Department also started a portal entitled “Anubhav” to show-case the experiences in Government of retiring officials which has now become a huge resource base for us. The Department not only introduced the concept of Pension Adalats but has leveraged technology to hold digital Adalats through video-conferencing.
Secretary, Department of Pension & Pensioners’ Welfare, V. Srinivas said in his address that DoPPW has commenced a series of awareness programs for Bankers with a view to provide information about the latest pension rules/procedures reforms and welfare initiatives to Bank’s field functionaries, handling pensions. He said, in line with the Government’s objective of transparency, digitization and service delivery, the Bhavishya platform has ensured End-to-End digitization of the Pension processing and payment.
From the retiree filing his/her papers online till issue of the PPO in electronic format going into the Digilocker, this platform has showcased the intention of complete transparency and efficiency of the Government, the ‘Bhavishya’ platform, an integrated online pension processing system was made mandatory for all central government departments w.e.f. 01.01.2017.