The Punjab government is bringing a new digital pension portal for 3 lakh pensioners. Pension related work on the portal will be sitting at home. It will be fully implemented by Diwali. The pilot project has started in 6 departments.
Punjab Digital Pension Portal: The Punjab government has announced a big relief for about 3 lakh pensioners of the state and early retired employees. The government has prepared to launch an advanced pension service portal so that all the problems related to pension will be resolved at home. Now pensioners will not have to visit government offices again and again. The government said that the pilot trial of this portal has been started in six departments and it will be made completely available to the public by Diwali.
Main facilities
- Relief from the affair of offices: Pensioners will no longer have to go to offices for small tasks and formalities.
- Pension Payment on time: Retired employees will get pension directly in their bank account on time, which will eliminate economic insecurity.
- Online Life Certificate: Life certificate submitted every year can now be submitted online.
- Timely Grievance Redressal: Every complaint filed on the portal will be given a unique ID and it will be sent directly to the concerned officer. It will be mandatory to solve within the stipulated time.
- The first phase will be implemented in health, education, police, water supply and sanitation departments. Data and record of existing pensioners of the employees retiring from these departments are being uploaded on the portal.
- The government has clarified that this facility will be for government employees only. Employees of boards and corporations have not been included in it because their service rules are different.
- This initiative is considered an important step towards digital governance in Punjab and will prove to be a big relief for pensioners.
- There are currently about 3 lakh pensioners in Punjab and around 10–15 thousand new retirement cases are added every year.
- Earlier pension clearance and grives redressal used to take an average of 3–6 months.
- The portal will also have an option of OTP based login, Aadhaar linking, and mobile apps.
- Life Certificate will be directly linked to the Jeevan Pramaan portal.
- One can add experience of a retired employee, like – now we will not have to go round the offices, it is a matter of relief for the elderly.
- All departments will be added to the second phase and there are plans to launch a mobile app in the third phase.
- The government can later bring separate models for board and corporation employees.