Over 11.61 lakh government pensioners can now track the status of their pension and grievance redressal through SMS as well as monitor receipts online steps that aim to ‘lessen harassment’ for senior citizens.
The web portal launched by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday will enable central civil pensioners, family pensioners and freedom fighter pensioners to view their complete pension profile digitally by logging into http://www.cpao.nic.in.
They will also be provided with SMS facility for tracking status of pension process and their grievance registration as well as disposal.
The website, which will serve as a one-stop destination for providing information and speedy redressal of grievances, can also be accessed through mobile devices and it would also provide an option to pensioners to give their feedback.
Launching the portal, Jaitley said it is an extremely important initiative which will lessen harassment. “Nobody should be harassed, least of all pensioners because they are mostly senior citizens. And they need that resource and their life depends on that resource. So any delay or red tapism can actually cause a lot of harassment if not destitution,” he said.
He said the facility of tracking pension status on mobile phone is a giant step taken by the Central Pension Accounting Office (CPAO). The website will provide one-stop solution for pensioners to access information relating to status of pension cases, and pension payments processed by central ministries and banks.
CPAO disburses the pensions through authorised banks to central government pensioners and in the current fiscal it is managing the pension budget of Rs 32,070 crore. In 2015-16, the CPAO handled 60,211 pensioners’ grievances.
Speaking on the occasion, Controller General of Accounts M J Joseph said the portal will bring in transparency and accountability and ensure more responsive way of handling pensioners grievances.