In order to seamlessly process, track and disburse pensions, the Department of Pension and Pensioners' Welfare will soon launch an Artificial Intelligence (AI) enabled the common portal for the benefit of pensioners and elderly citizens.
Union Minister Jitendra Singh said that the AI-supported portal, 'Bhavishya', will send automatic alerts to pensioners and superannuated senior citizens, including retired paramilitary personnel.
Apart from enabling constant contact with pensioners and their associations across India, the portal will also receive their inputs, suggestions as well as grievances regularly for a prompt response, The New Indian Express reported.
'Bhavishya' Portal
While Bhavishya has ensured end-to-end digitalisation of pension processing and payment, the government has advised officials to conduct pre-retirement workshops regularly to counsel them and learn from their experiences.
The Bhavishya platform was made mandatory for all the central government departments in 2017 and is now being implemented in the main secretariat from where 97 ministries and departments, including 815 attached offices, and 7,852 drawing and disbursal officers (DDOs) are on board.
Over 1,62,000 cases have been processed, or pension payment orders (PPOs) issued to date. This also includes 96,000 e-PPOs.
Eliminate Delays
Department of Pension and Pensioners' Welfare Secretary V Srinivas said Pension Payment Order (PPO) in Digi locker eliminates delays in forwarding it to new pensioners and the necessity of handing over a physical copy.
Considering that a vast number of retirees are from central armed police forces (CAPFs) who serve in far-flung areas of the country, such a software acts as a boon both in terms of ease of processing and speed and accuracy, The Economic Times reported.
Every stakeholder has a deadline to complete their pension processing, and alerts keep going on the pensioners' mobile, the statement said, highlighting the electronic processing of pension cases.
Unlike past, this prevents the necessity of the retired employee to keep chasing his file from seat-to-seat months before his retirement, it said.
Since the software is loaded with the latest pension rules, the pension calculation is accurate and per rule and not based on the interpretation of the staff concerned, the statement added.