Be sensitive to needs of pensioners: Defence ministry to banks

In a meeting with the representatives of ministries of Finance and Defence here yesterday, Minister of State for Defence Jitendra Singh exhorted banks to utilise IT solutions for ensuring timely and accurate payment of pension.

He also instructed them to ensure accurate flow of pension related information to pensioners and Controller General of Defence Accounts (CGDA).

"In the meeting, issues related to delayed payment of pension, restoration of commuted pension and timely payment of gratuity were discussed. It was also observed that pensioners are facing difficulties in some banks in getting their due on time," a Defence Ministry release said here today.

Banks have been directed to be sensitive to the needs of pensioners and have multiple counters for giving priority to the needs of defence pensioners.

"Banks were also asked to have relationship managers to liaise with such pensioners. Ministry of Finance (Banking Division) agreed to issue further directives to the banks for streamlining pension payments," the release said.

It was also observed that response of banks to SANGAM project launched by CGDA for facilitating revised pension payment to defence pensioners has not been very encouraging.

The CGDA and banks have agreed to rework the CGDA formats for enabling monitoring of progress of the revised pension payments, it said.