All Agency Banks

Dear Sir,

2. Please acknowledge receipt.

Yours faithfully,

(M. T. Varghese)
General Manager

The payment of pension to retired Government employees is governed by the relevant Schemes prepared by concerned Ministries/Departments with the approval of Controller General of Accounts, Ministry of Finance, Government of India or by State Governments and involves payment of increased Dearness Relief and other benefits as and when announced by the Governments. Various circulars issued in this connection are summarized hereunder for information.

2. Hosting of Government Orders on Dearness Relief (DR) etc. to State Government Pensioners on Web sites of State Governments

In order to obviate the time lag between issue of Dearness Relief orders and payment of Dearness Relief to the beneficiary and to render expeditious service to the senior citizens, it has been decided that pension paying agency banks should act on the copies of the orders supplied by Government to the Head Offices and/or Regional Offices of authorized banks in the State headquarters.

Further, it was decided to host the Circulars on the State Governments' secured website.

All State Governments have been given the option to send the Government Orders relating to Dearness Relief to RBI in electronic format and also hard copy to enable Reserve Bank to host the same on its website.

In order to obviate the time lag between the issue of Dearness Relief etc. orders and actual payment to the beneficiaries and to render expeditious service to the senior citizens, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Department of Pension and Pensioners Welfare, Government of India have taken following steps :

RBI would no longer be forwarding Government orders in respect of dearness relief to Agency Banks.

Pension paying banks were advised to put in place mechanism to immediately obtain copies of Government Orders and release it to the pension paying branches for action at their end so that the pensioners should get the benefits announced by Government in the succeeding month’s pension payment itself. The Controlling Offices/ Head Offices of Agency banks should closely monitor and supervise timely and correct disbursement of Government pension to eligible pensioners. Further, in the cases of Central Civil and Railway pensioners, the pension paying banks should endorse the names of nominees as per nomination forms ‘A’ and ‘B’ on the front page of the pass book and the branches may be advised to ensure that the procedure laid down in Schemes for disbursement of pension to pensioners by public sector banks are followed scrupulously. In order to create better awareness among staff about pension payment schemes/ rules, banks may include this as an integral part of the training programmes conducted by their training establishments.

With a view to redressing inconvenience to the pensioners and their heirs, it has been advised by the Government that all pension paying bank branches should accept nomination in form "A" or "B" as the case may be, submitted by the pensioners for the payment of arrears of pension to the heirs.

With a view to avoid inconvenience to the pensioners, Ministry of Railways (Railway Board), has decided to adopt the nomination forms (‘A’ & ‘B’) prescribed by Central Pension Accounting Office (CPAO) for Railway pensioners also. Agency banks were advised to issue necessary instructions to all pension paying branches to accept Nomination Forms ‘A’ or ‘B’ as the case may be, submitted by Railway pensioners for the payment of arrears of pension to the heir(s).

1. PPO number for All India Service Pensioners would incorporate, besides the 12 digit numeric component used for Central Civil pensioner, a prefix indicating the service and the state cadre to which the pensioner belongs. A sample PPO number for an IAS Officer of Punjab cadre would be – IAS/Pb/438840400191.
2. All India Service Pensioners will have the option to draw pension only through the authorised banks i.e. Public Sector Banks and the four authorized Private Sector Banks viz. IDBI Bank Ltd., UTI Bank Ltd., ICICI Bank Ltd. and HDFC Bank Ltd.
3. The Special Seal Authority (SSA) issued by the CPAO would be in blue colour to distinguish it from authorities issued for Central Civil pensioners. In addition, the authority will indicate the State Government to which the payment is debitable.
4. One copy of the SSA will be sent to concerned Accountant General for information and record.
5. The concerned paying branches of the bank after following the necessary procedure for identifying the pensioner would release the payment and add the name of All India Service Pensioner to the scrolls prepared for State Government Pensioners to be routed for reimbursement to the reimbursing branches of the Reserve Bank/ State Bank as the case may be. Such scrolls are NOT being handled under Single Window System of pension reimbursement for Central Government Civil Pensioners and should not therefore be sent to CPAO.
6. The reimbursing branches would follow the procedure for the State Government Pensioners and send advice to Reserve Bank, CAS, Nagpur and the corresponding scrolls to the concerned Accountant General.
7. The RBI, CAS, Nagpur would debit the concerned State Government Account as per the procedure.

It has been observed that there is a lag of two to three months in submitting the pension payment scrolls to pension authorities by the pension paying banks.

Often these scrolls are bunched. In this connection, a reference is invited to paragraphs 9(6), 10 and 11 of the booklet "Scheme for Payment of Pension to Defence Pensioners" wherein the procedure for transmission of pension payment scrolls by paying branches, link branches and reimbursing branches is clearly stipulated. The entire procedure needs to be completed as per the timeframe fixed so that the payment scrolls are finally received at the Office of the PCDA (Pension), Allahabad latest by 15^th of the following month (except for the month of March scrolls, which should invariably reach latest by 3^rd week of April every year).

Office of the PCDA (Pension) has also noticed that in some cases of payment of gratuity and commutation amount were made to imposters on fake and fraudulent PPOs by the pension paying branches without observing prescribed checks. It has also been observed that in the cases of first payment of pension, either PPO numbers were not mentioned on the scrolls or incorrect PPO numbers were mentioned making it difficult to verify the correctness of the payment. Further, these payments were being shown in the main pension payment scrolls along with the regular monthly payments of Defence Pensioners.

The Pension Paying Branches/ Link Branches / Reimbursing branches are advised to put in place a more efficient system to ensure the following:

(i) Pension Paying branches to submit pension payment scrolls to Link Branches within the stipulated time (by 10^th of the following month). No bunching of scrolls is done.

(ii) Link branches to forward the original copy of the scroll along with summary sheet and summary documents to disbursing banks (RBI / SBI etc. as the case may be) by 11^th of each month.

(iii) Reimbursing banks should forward the original copy of the scrolls directly to CDA (Pension), Allahabad after reimbursing pension paying bank, by debit to Government Account so as to reach PCDA (Pension) by 15^th of the following month except for the March scrolls.

(iv) In the cases of first payments of pension, pension paying branches should prepare scrolls carefully indicating correct PPO number, amount of gratuity and commutation against the name of each pensioner and submit the same separately on a monthly basis in addition to the regular monthly payment cases which will continue to be prepared separately along with separate summary sheet.

(v) Pension paying branches should prepare separate summary sheets for regular monthly pension payment cases as well as first pension payment case.

We have been informed by the Ministry of Railways, Government of India, (Railway Board) that their vigilance department has detected cases of fraud

wherein pension / pension arrears have been disbursed to unauthorized persons by some of the Public Sector Banks against fake Pension Payment Orders (PPOs). They have also observed that such fraudulent payments are made by pension paying branches without observing prescribed checks i.e. releasing payments by relying upon calculation sheet not signed by authorized signatory etc. as also non-compliance of laid down procedures, in particular regarding receipt of PPOs by banks.

Railway pension paying branches are requested to strictly follow the procedure laid down in "Scheme for Payment of Railway Pension through Public Sector Banks" by the Ministry of Railways (Railway Board) for disbursement of pension to Railway pensioners to avoid fraudulent payments against fake pension payment orders.

It has come to our notice that some of the Pension Paying Bank branches do not update the amount of basic pension/family pension whenever there is change in basic rates in both halves of the Pension Payment Order (PPO) concerned.

In this connection, we reproduce below para 12.17 and 19.1 of the 'Scheme for Payment of Pensions to Central Government Civil Pensioners by Public Sector Banks":

Banks are requested to draw the attention of their pension paying branches to the above provisions and advise them to strictly follow the instructions.

11. Disbursement of Railway Pension by Agency Banks- Main areas where banks tend to make overpayment.

A list of main areas where the banks tends to make overpayments in respect of Railway pensioners received from Financial Adviser & Chief Accounts Officer’s Office, Central Railway, Mumbai was forwarded to all agency banks with a request to circulate the same among their pension paying branches and instruct them to take appropriate action so as to avoid overpayments of Railway pension.

The instructions issued by Central Pension Accounting Office (CPAO) in regard to crediting of pension amount to the joint account alongwith spouse in whose favour an authorization for family pension exists in the Pension Payment Order (PPO) in respect of Central Civil pensioners have been made applicable to Railway pensioners also vide Ministry of Railways (Railway Board), Circular No. RBA.63/ 2005 (2005/ ACII/ 21/ 19) dated October 13, 2005. The joint account of the pensioner with the spouse could be operated either by ‘Former or Survivor’ or ‘Either or Survivor’ basis subject to certain terms and conditions mentioned in Ministry of Railways Circular dated October 13, 2005 referred to above.