Come November- Pensioners’ Nightmare[1]
First,
a story.
In a
village, almost every household was keeping
a cat as their pet. Once, there
was a spiritual leader who was giving discourses on various topics of interest.
One day, after he started his discourse,
he found a cat criss crossing the hall disturbing the thought process of the
spiritual leader. So, he ordered one of
his disciple to take it away. But, it returned almost immediately. Then, he ordered his disciple to tie it in a pillar
in the hall till the discourse was completed.
Next time when the spiritual leader commenced his discourse, the cat reappeared and
disturbed the tranquillity of the place. This time, the disciple proceeded to
tie the cat and enabled the spiritual leader to continue with his
discourse. Almost every time when the
spiritual leader commenced his discourse, a cat started coming in and disturbing the discourse
proceedings. So, his disciple also in all reverence to the leader used to tie
the cat in a pillar and enabled the
leader to continue with his discourse. After some time, the spiritual leader
attained mokhsha and one of his senior
disciples was asked to continue the discourses.
The
new spiritual leader chose to move to another village for giving his discourses
so that more people would benefit from them. On the first day of his discourse, at the
appointed time, the spiritual leader was sitting silently and the audience and
the disciples were also sitting patiently for the leader to commence his
discourse. Time rolled and no discourse was in sight for the audience. The audience did not know the reason and one
of them asked a disciple the reason for
the delay. The disciple reasoned out to the person that it was customary for the spiritual leader
to get a cat tied in a pillar before commencing his discourse. Since no cat was
found coming in on its own, a disciple has been despatched to fetch one cat for
completing the ritual. Moral: Over time,
we cling on to the process forgetting the rationale behind it.
Now, move on to read my real life story.
A few days back, I got an e- mail from my former employer that a meeting of pensioners has been organised at the Regional Ofice to get the formality of submission of ‘Life Certificates’ completed so that pension from November onwards will continue without any interruption. I replied saying that I was away from the station and I would be returning home after a couple of months. Bang! I got the response almost instantaneously that my pension will be resumed after my return to the station and submission of the ‘life certificate’ to the office.
Another situation in the life of a pensioner. Mr Sundaram appeared to be pretty desperate when he asked his son Ramu to get him and his
wife a train ticket in A/c Two tier or Three tier under the Tatkal Scheme to travel to Pune.
The conversation between them proceeded something like this.
‘Ramu, I have forgotton about my pension payment. I am
required to give the ‘Life Certificate’ to the bank before the end of November
to ensure continuity of getting my pension. So, I will go to Pune where my
pension account is maintained in a bank
and return to Chennai after submission of the ‘Life Certificate’ to
it. On hearing this, Ramu just laughed
and virtually ignored the request of his father. Sundaram does not seem to give up and pushed
his son to get him a ticket under the Tatkal scheme.
‘Dad, you get a monthly pension of Rs.7500/-. For you and
Amma to go to Pune and return to Chennai by train using Tatkal Scheme for both
ways would mean an expenditure of about Rs.5000/. So, it is not worthy to go
now spending so much on travel cost of both of you.’
Another conversation between a pensioner and his family
members went like this.
‘Somehow, I will have to go to the pension payment office
in Teynampet before the end of this month
(November) to submit my ‘Life Certificate’. My health does not permit me to
travel by a public transport system. But, to
go from my home at Oragadam and
come back using an auto-rickshaw or a taxi would mean a minimum expenditure of Rs. 2000/-
and with my pension of only
Rs.5000/-, it is going to be a big drain
on my resources.’
Come November every year, Pensioners (both Central
Government and State Governments) all over India are becoming more nervous in
complying with the requirement of this peculiar pension rule of presenting
oneself physically at the pension payment offices for submission of ‘Life
Certificate’ to them. It is compulsory
for a pensioner to furnish a Life Certificate in November. This practice, it
appears has been adopted by the Government of India from the British system of
payment of Pension to their retired personnel.
According to the 6th Central Pay Commission
Report, there were as many as 3.84 million
pensioners covered under the Central Government Scheme in 2006-07 which would
have gone up to 5.0 million pensioners now. It is estimated that out of 1.1 million
strong army, there is a larger force of
about 2 million pensioners or retired soldiers for every serving soldier. Each
year, about 55,000 defence personnel retire from their services add up to this
growing number. Besides this, there are
those pensioners of various state governments, those covered under various
pension schemes such as Indira Gandhi National Old Age Pension Scheme (one
estimate indicates that there are about 4.26 lakh such pensioners in Karnataka
alone), National Widow Pension Scheme, Disability Pension Scheme etc. The State Bank of India, the largest bank in
the country indicates that there are over 1.20 lakh pensioners on their rolls
covering the retired employees of the then Imperial Bank of India and the
present SBI. In addition, a large number of public sector undertakings
like the LIC, the General Insurance Companies, the PSBs, oil companies, those
in steel and mining, institutions like the RBI, the NABARD and a host of
various other organisations covered under the Centre and the States have their
huge stock of pensioners. On the back
envelope calculation would put the figure of about 20 million pensioners in the
country . All these people would be required to submit their Life Certificates
to prevent the ‘Life Threatening stoppage of Pension’ if the certificate is not
submitted. Most of them would have
crossed the age of 70+ years and having one or more age related health issues
making it difficult for them to move physically to their pension payment
offices (including bank branches wherever payment is routed through bank
branches).
It involves a huge movement of people – from a shortest
distance of a few hundreds of metres to
thousands of kilometres from their home to the pension payment office .
It involves crores and crores of paper work for all those concerned (as many
Life Certificates as the living number of pensioners), filing and verifying
these records for auditing and other purposes. It involves a huge drain of
financial resources in terms of travel
cost, opportunity cost by way of income foregone as at least a day will be lost
in physical travel to and from the pension payment office, for those pensioners whose pension amount is
pretty small. Is there any thought to reduce the rigour of these
pensioners to make their lives more comfortable? Here are a few suggestions.
(1)
The Central Pension Authority has issued a
notification which provides exemption from personal appearance of the pensioner
to the bank for submission of Life Certificates. It has listed 11 categories of persons who
can issue such a certificate. Besides, in the case of a pensioner drawing
his/ her pension through a Public Sector Bank, the Life Certificate may be
signed by an officer of a PSB and not by
the same branch of the bank which disburses the pension. But, in practice this is observed more in
breach and not followed. So, the first
step toward this would be to create
awareness among the officials of bank branches and more particularly the
pensioners of their right to use this facility. This can be achieved by
inserting advertisements in leading newspapers
during October-November by the concerned Ministry at the GoI level, the Indian Bank Association on behalf of all
the PSBs, concerned State Governments etc.
(2)
In the last few years, the country has witnessed
tremendous advancement of information technology in banking with Core Banking
Solutions (CBS) introduced in all banks.
This has enabled the people to access their bank accounts sitting in the
comforts of their home. Less privileged
can access by visiting nearest bank branches of the same bank where they can do
their banking services. In addition, the
penetration of mobile phones in the country with an estimated users of over 6
billion is phenomenal. For transfer of
funds and payment of bills through
online mode, banks follow a system of
providing a ‘One-Time Password’ (OTP)
to their customers. On similar lines, when a pensioner wants to submit
his / her Life Certificate through on-line mode (submission of Life Certificate
does not require the signature of the pensioner and it requires only the
signature of the person authorised to issue it), such OTP may be provided to those pension
account holders having mobile phone facility and registered the same with the
bank concerned. On receipt of the OTP in their registered
mobile phone, the pensioner concerned should
be allowed to submit the form online without the need for submission of a signed Life Certificate.
(3)
In addition, for those pensioners having some
form of fixed deposit accounts with the bank which also disburses the pension,
it can automatically record the Life Certificate on behalf of that particular
pensioner and continue to release the pension without any stoppage for want of
a Life Certificate. This logic is based on the practice of allowing an account holder to make deposits in any branch
and accepting it for credit of his/her account in another branch without any
need for visiting the branch concerned
and without insisting on a Life Certificate every time when such deposits are
made.
(4)
Another revolution taking place in the country
is introduction of Aadhhar numbers to its citizens. The RBI has directed
the banks to allow use of Aadhhar number as compliance of Know Your Customer
(KYC) norm required for opening any bank accounts. With about 400 million Aadhhar enrolments so far, it should be
possible to track the person concerned without much difficulty. Aadhhar portal may introduce such facility to
the number holders and register the Life Certificates of such holders and it
can pass on these Life Certificates to various pension agencies for their
on-line record.
It is understood that in the USA where pension/ social security payments are
made, the entire system is programmed to provide information on-line and thus
virtually dispensed with the use of
paper work. With information technology
in place in the banking system, the Government of India may revisit the
existing guidelines on submission of Life Certificates and dispense with the
practice wherever needed (like those having bank accounts) and / or modify them
to be more user-friendly. We must also work towards compliance of submission of
Life Certificates, wherever needed, through on-line system and save the
trees from the jaws of death. The risk of misuse of this system may be far
and few between which can be addressed through use of similar guidelines available for such mal-practices
for bank customers and others. This would also
make the scheme a Greener Compliance one and the Government(s) may get Carbon Credits for
such measures from which they can gain and become environment friendly too.
Will they bring smile on the faces of Pensioners and make Novembers a
quiet month to spend?
[1] Dr S Santhanam, General Manager,
NABARD (Retd) and Consultant (Development Finance), Mobile:
+919850839776.
