Pensioners and elderly citizens are essential stakeholders in making a developed India by the year 2047, said Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh here on Friday.

He said the government is simplifying procedures related to disbursal of pensions in order to provide to beneficiaries ease of living, and consign their energies to the task of nation building.

Dr Singh was speaking at the 54th Pre-Retirement Counselling Workshop organised by the Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare under the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions at Convention Centre, Jammu.

“The Government is utilising the latest and best available technology to minimise delays and improve the administrative procedures concerning pension,” the Minister said.

He stated that the government has resolved to utilise the expertise of retiring employees and make them part of a ‘Team India’ which has been tasked with realising the goal of a developed India.

The Union Minister said that under the patronage of Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, the government has ushered in revolutionary administrative reforms and done away with colonial, archaic and obsolete rules and laws.

“All this has been done to ensure citizen-centre governance, with increased transparency, accountability and ease of living,” he pointed out.

Dr Singh informed that divorced daughters and widows as well as spouses of missing or disappeared government servants, particularly in J&K, are now entitled to receive pension, which was not the case in the past.

Dr Jitendra Singh said that facial recognition technology is now being used to issue Digital Life Certificates (DLC) to pensioners to prevent fraud, bring in ease and comfort as well as save time and energy of the pensioners.

“The government hit upon this best form of technology to improve upon the existing biometric based system,” he underlined.

Similarly, the government has introduced human intervention in Artificial Intelligence. This unique and out-of-the-box initiative is aimed at gathering feedback from complainants through the setting up of a Human Desk’ with a human touch, he highlighted.

The Union Minister expressed delight at the success of CPGRAMS which is an online platform available to the citizens round-the-clock to lodge their grievances to the public authorities on any subject related to service delivery.

“This success story is being emulated by Bangladesh, the Maldives and South Africa,” he informed.

These sessions have been curated to make the retirees aware of the process to be followed and forms to be filled pre-retirement and to provide information about the benefits available to them post-retirement.

A detailed session on the various Investment modes, their benefits and investment planning will also be organised to enable the retirees to plan investment of their retirement funds well in time.

There will also be a detailed session on the CGHS system, CGHS portal, facilities provided as well as procedures to be followed to avail CGHS benefits.

It is expected that about 250 retirees, due to retire in the next 9 months, will benefit hugely from this Pre-Retirement Counselling (PRC) workshop.

The Department will continue to hold such workshops, as part of Good Governance to ensure a smooth and comfortable transition for Central Government retirees.

The department is taking all efforts to keep them updated of the Government initiatives being taken so that they can avail all the benefits, post retirement