Opting Out Of Sparsh — An Open Letter To CGDA By Navy Foundation Mumbai Chapter

Opting Out Of Sparsh — An Open Letter To CGDA By Navy Foundation Mumbai Chapter

Dear Mr Abhishek Singh

Deputy CDA

PCDA (P), Prayagraj

Good Day,

1. The following are the points on behalf of the members of the Navy Foundation Mumbai Chapter for the proposed On Line Pension Adalat scheduled on 05 May 2022 —

a) As per the directives of Hon RM and Defence Secretary during review of SPARSH on 04 Mar 22 and again on 11 Mar 22, CGDA must mandatory obtain non-consent of a Pensioner, in writing, from those Pensioners desiring to retain the legacy system. If the Pensioner is unwilling to migrate, the Pension should be processed through legacy system only. (MOM attached ) This was not followed in the case of Capt K C Tewari (02792-A) who retired in June 2018. This needs to be clarified. What procedure will be followed by PCDA (A) in obtaining prior non-consent of ESM for migration to Sparsh. The option of choosing the Legacy system is being viewed as a lifeline by Sr Citizens, Super Sr. Citizens & Veer Naaris etc. However for this option to be truly and faithfully implemented, the following provisions need to be made, which are currently in force in the Legacy System and has withstood test of time for over three decades :–

i) All ePPO”s should be transferred to CPCCs of Banks with authorisation to amend essential details in ePPOs on the basis of relevant documents as approved by GOI, such as Aadhar Card, PAN card etc.

ii) All GOI orders, directives, instructions, guidelines, etc. must continue to be issued to all CMDs and CPPCs of Banks of Pensioners with due authority for revisions,re-fixation of Pension, payment of arrears, effecting recoveries in the event of wrong and erroneous payments, as hitherto fore under the Legacy System.

iii) While concerned PCDAs will continue to be the Pension Sanctioning Authorities, CMDs and CPPCs of Banks should continue to be designated as the PDA of Pensioners.

b) Please intimate what is the functioning which has been proposed for those ESM”s and Veer Naaris who are not computer literate or do not have access to computers / smart phones or do not have any access to Computers, or do not have anyone they can trust to do so, or are physically unable because of illness or disability to travel to a CSC. Will a very old ( above 75 yrs) or disabled ESM be able to get doorstep service similar to Banks providing door step service like Life certificate etc. being provided to ESM”s above 75 years and Veer Naaris.

c) 2nd Phase of Migration Pre- 01 Jan 2016 to Sparsh, should only be undertaken after successive, completion of the 1st Phase. Feed back from ESM”s who were migrated should be obtained by mail and shared with Cmde( ESM ( Affairs), all CRSO”s and President of all Navy Foundation Chapters for dissemination to the Veterans & Veer Naaris.

d) All suo-moto e-ppos which have already been issued and require correction should first be corrected and shared with respective Veterans before the Migration.

e) Establishment of Robust and user friendly grievance redressal system should cater for ESM”s & Veer Naaris who are not computer / smart phone savvy.This system should be tested monthly for its efficacy and feed back be also obtained from the Veterans through the Navy Foundation chapters & CRSO”s on its working to the entire satisfaction of ESM”s.

f) Efficacy of the CSC”s ( Common Service Centres ) be also established and monitored regularly.Who will check their working efficiently ? Who will be manning CSC”s ??? It may be a good idea to involve retired Naval Officers / Sailors who have already had a tenure in Naval Pension Office.

g) What procedure would be followed for converting to Family pension after the demise of ESM. It should cater for illiterate Veer Naaris and Very Sr. Veterans who are not comfortable with Computers / Smart phones.

h) What would be the procedure for knowing whether ESM is getting his/her correct pension.

i) On attaining the age of 80 years, what procedure ESM should follow to get 20 % increase in the pension.

j) There may still be illiterate Veer Naaris who do not use cell phones / computer. How will instant email / SMS alerts would be sent to them ???

k) What are the salient features of the MOU signed between PCDA(Pension) with CSC ( Common service Centre) ??? Its content may please be shared with ESM”s.

l) Efforts must be made by DAD ( Defence Accounts Department )to quickly put in place a very customer friendly interactive grievance mechanism accessible to the most age and technologically handicapped pensioners and family pensioners including some who may be constrained educationally. this will require an unconventional and out of the ordinary effort and a challenge by the DAD and the Service Headquarters, unlike methods adopted in the past.. Without such an effort, the SPARSH transfer will certainly be a case of the medicine being more lethal than the disease.

m) The process of intimation of SPARSH user ID & Ty Passwords may not be smooth, due to the absence of or incorrect mobile numbers and / or email ID”s. Some Veterans, not knowing what the text message is about, may delete the message and would have to contact the help-desk at PCDA(P), Allahabad to get a fresh intimation. In the absence of publicity and pre-notification, pre-supposing that these Veterans / Veer Naaris know what to be done is clear evidence of hasty and improperly planned implementation. The plight of those with the inability to receive or to read and act upon such message is unimaginable.

n) Given the fact that the issue and uploading of pre-Sparsh, legacy e-ppo”s is severely in errors, how is it proposed to handle the enormous task of ensuring correctness and issue of SPARSH e-ppo”s for all legacy cases of pre-01 Jan 2016.Would DAD manpower be able to handle the immense workload of ensuring correctness and issue of corrected SPARSH e-ppo”s for all ESM”s.

o) Proper qualified staff from all three Services would need to be assigned on a temporary basis to simultaneously handle the workload of verification, and of detection and rectification of errors in date prior to SPARSH i.e PPO finalisation and branch transfer from bank CPCCs.

p)To cater to errors in pension figures and personal information sought to be transferred, the single most important and unavoidable requirement is that in each case, draft SPARSH e-ppo”s must be communicated to the pensioner and final transfer authorised / initiated by PCDA(P) SPARSH CPCC only and only after ensuring 100 % correctness obtained from the Pensioner.

q) Since many pensioners can not undertake the work of checking draft SPARSH e-ppo”s and of uploading required documents, provision will have to be made for pension assistance groups and registered bodies to assist in such cases using an OTP based verification process hosted by the SPARSH portal.

r) In the SPARSH system, for ESM not having safe access to on-line facilities, redressing of problems by physical interaction, will be very problematic due to the greatly reduced numbers of nodes, and the difficulty of rural ESM travelling to them to produce documents / proof of support any requested corrections

s) A delicate issue, mention of which can not be avoided, is that of likely misdemeanours or corrupt demands from lower staff of the DAD nodes especially from ORs and dependents, for processing corrections. Such problems are not faced with bank staff. This issue needs to be tackled.

t) In view of the problems already encountered in the recent transfer of batches of non-legacy SBI pensioners, it is suggested that transfer of further batches of individual pensioners be undertaken only after an interactive data verification / purification process prior to finalization of DRAFT e-ppos, and not before. Given that problems are being faced even by some of the recent SPARSH transferees from SBI which with PNB, has the most organised and settled data base, it is certain that near chaos will result if the current process of issuing final SPARSH e-ppos straightaway, is replicated with other banks databases.

u) After transfer to SPARSH, if not a single pensioner or family pensioner is to suffer non-credit or incorrect payment of pension, due to data-base errors, for more than a week, it is a must that the date base transfer process be optimized, and that a practical, responsive, and completely elderly or rural pensioner friendly grievance mechanism be put in place before the damage is done. If necessary, implementation of past pensioners be put on hold till processes and methods are refined, streamlined, and put in place after adequate publicity through Navy Foundation Chapters & CRSO’s thereof is carried out.

2. Safe receipt of this mail may please be acknowledged. Thanks !!

Best Regards !!

*Cdr. Vijay Vadhera* ( 01235-F )(Retd)

President,Navy Foundation,Mumbai Chapter

e-mail= vkvadhera@gmail.com