Pension dept should be reoriented to make retired staff part of nation building: Jitendra Singh

Retired employees are a healthy and productive workforce for India and there is a need to streamline and channelise their energy in a productive direction, Union Minister Jitendra Singh said.

The Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions urged the authorities to optimise the use of technology in redressal of pensioners' grievances.

Chairing the 31st meeting of the Standing Committee of Voluntary Agencies (SCOVA), organised by the Department of Pensions and Pensioners' Welfare (DoP&PW), he listened to the grievances of the pensioners and assured them of timely redressal, saying the government is very much caring towards resolving their issues.

"The government is totally aware about the sensitivities related to the pensioners' demands and is bound to resolve them," Singh said.

Emphasising on the maximum digitisation of the documentation process dealing with the pensioners' cases, he said that the Department of Pensions has already digitalised the process of providing life certificates by pensioners and other documents.

"We have started Pension Adalats through video conferencing and started the Pensioners' Portal where one can easily check the Pension Payment Order status," Singh said.

The minister said that retired persons are an asset to the society and the country needs to evolve a mechanism to make good use of their knowledge, experience and efforts of the retired employees, which can help in value addition to the current scenario.

"The retired employees are a healthy and productive workforce for India and we need to streamline and channelise their energy in a productive direction.

"We should learn from the pensioners' experience and the DoP&PW should be reoriented in such a way that pensioners become a part of nation building process," Singh said.

On the demand of the SCOVA members, the minister agreed to hold its meeting bi-annually instead of once a year.