Centre holds outreach programme with pensioners' association: DoPPW

Senior officials of the Department of Pension & Pensioners' Welfare (DoPPW) under the Union Personnel Ministry has conducted an outreach programme with a pensioners' association here aimed at enhancing their ease of living, according to an official statement issued on Saturday.

The DoPPW has been holding awareness programmes for pensioners in online mode as well as through interactive meetings to dispense information and also to understand issues faced by pensioners as well as dwell on any suggestions forwarded by them.

As part of the outreach programme of DoPPW, meetings are held with these associations, online as well as physically, at regular intervals, said the statement issued by the Personnel Ministry.

One such meeting was held with Bharat Pensioners' Samaj, a registered pensioners' association, for which V Srinivas, Secretary (DoPPW), Sanjiv Narain Mathur, Additional Secretary, DoPPW and other officials from the department visited the association's office at Jangpura, Delhi on July 7, it said.

During the interaction, Secretary (DoPPW) apprised the association members of the various initiatives taken by the department including development of an integrated pensioners' portal for providing pension-related information to pensioners from a single portal, nationwide pension adalats for on-the-spot resolution of grievances and Anubhav awards, the statement said.

Various policies made for the benefit of pensioners, such as pension for widowed, unmarried, divorced daughters were also discussed, it added.

The Department of Pension & Pensioners' Welfare has taken a number of initiatives for augmenting pensioners' welfare with a view to enhance their "ease of living", the statement said.

"It has been a constant endeavour to take steps to reach out to all pensioners through various modes and spread awareness about the initiatives of DoPPW, thus enabling all pensioners to use the benefits curated specially for them," it added.

S C Maheshwari, General Secretary, Bharat Pensioners' Samaj, shared the best practices of the association which included maintaining a directory of members, disseminating information and interacting with members through WhatsApp groups, newsletters, the association's website and various social media platforms, the statement said.

He gave detailed information about the various activities undertaken by the association and assured complete support and participation in all initiatives of DoPPW including the proposed nationwide digital life certificate campaign.

Members of the association also gave a feedback regarding the nature of pension-related grievances received by them and a discussion was held to initiate steps to ensure non-occurrence of issues generating such grievances, it said.