E-Pension Payment Order: Service extended to all defence pensioners

In order to further Narendra Modi government's Digital India-initiative, Principal Controller of Defence Accounts(Pensions), Allahabad has started issuance of electronic-Pension Payment Orders (e-PPOs) to the pensioners along with their Pension Disbursement Agencies viz., Banks, Defence Pension Disbursement Offices, Post Offices, etc. 
 
The service has now been extended to all defence pensioners including defence civilians. It began in the first phase for all Commissioned Officers and JCOs/ORs of Armed Forces from the month of October 2017.  Principal Controller of Defence Accounts (Pensions), Allahabad, is the sole agency under the Ministry of Defence. It sanctions Pensions for the Defence Services, Indian Army, Coast Guard, Defence Research and Development Organization, General Reserve Engineer Force, Border Roads Organization, Military Engineering Services and other Defence organisations including Defence Account Department and Defence Civilians, a Ministry of Defence statement said.
 
The shift to e-PPO system from manual system is expected to minimise delays in pension disbursement and further revision as and when needed, the statement said. This initiative will also eliminate the occurrence of human errors in data entry at multiple levels.
 
The statement further said that the next step would be digitising pension documents received from 46 record offices and over 2900 Heads of Offices. This initiative by PCDA (P) will facilitate better implementation of OROP, the statement said.
 
e-Pension extend the benefit of e-governance to the pensioners. The aim of the scheme is to bring a positive deviation from the present system by minimising the physical movement of files and papers to minimise the processing time.
 
The e-governance system brings transparency in the system to make tracking and retrieval of records more effectively. The Narendra Modi government has since the very first day of coming to power has taken various steps to promote Digital India. The government is trying to make all the government services online. This initiative is another boost to the Digital India initiative.