Many senior citizens face problems with their pension in different stages of the sanction procedure and the final disbursement. However, there are instances where a pensioner faces difficulty when there are delays on the part of the bank or the pension disbursing offices. Sometimes delay in submitting a life certificate also stops the pension.
However, the problem of pensioners-cum-senior citizens have been addressed from time to time by the central bank and the government agencies. There are designated portals where a person can lodge a complaint. Many pensioners are not aware of these facilities.
Even RBI has underlined that there have been complaints that life certificates submitted over the counter of pension paying branches are misplaced causing delay in payment of monthly pensions.
In order to alleviate the hardships faced by pensioners, agency banks (banks in which the pensioner holds the account) were instructed by RBI to mandatorily issue duly signed acknowledgements.
Following several complaints from pensioners alleging inordinate delay in disbursing revised pension and arrears, RBI had advised the agency banks.
Banks have been advised to put in place a mechanism to obtain immediately the copies of pension orders from the pension paying authorities directly and make payments without waiting for receipt of instructions from the Reserve Bank of India so that pensioners should get benefits announced by the Governments in the succeeding month’s pension payment itself.
Pension paying banks should compensate the pensioner for delay in crediting pension/ arrears thereof at a fixed interest rate of 8 per cent per annum for the delay after the due date of payment.
When the agency bank is calculating pension, the branch should continue to be a point of referral for the pensioner lest he/she feel disenfranchised.
All branches having pension accounts should guide and assist the pensioners in all their dealings with the bank.
Suitable arrangements should be made to place the arithmetic and other details about pension calculations on the web, to be made available to the pensioners through the net or at the branches at periodic intervals as may be necessary and sufficient advertisement is made about such arrangements.
All agency banks disbursing pensions are advised to provide considerate and sympathetic customer service to the pensioners, especially to those pensioners who are of old age.
Agency banks have been asked to display the instructions issued in this regard on their notice board at the branches so that sick and disabled pensioners can make full use of these facilities.
If the pensioner is not satisfied with the resolution of the grievance, then there are multiple options where one can register the complaint online.
Pension delay problem: How to lodge a complaint?
– Pensioners may e-mail their specific problem related to processing of their pension papers at Central Pension Accounting Office (CPAO), Ministry of Finance, to the mail id cccpao[at]nic[dot]in, quoting their Pension Payment Order (PPO) number.
-For convenience of pensioners a toll free no.1800-11-77-88 has been installed in CPAO which is dedicated for getting the grievances of pensioners.
-Through www[dot]pensionersportal[dot]gov[dot]in: Pensioners can access the Centralized Pension Grievances Redress And Monitoring System ( Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions) and register a complaint.
– If a pensioner has a complaint against their bank, they can visit the official website of the Bank and lodge a complaint and if the issue is not resolved they can register their grievance with RBI’s online Complaint Management System.
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