CGDA resolves the glitch in the SPARSH portal that pays less pension

The Controller General of Defence Accounts (CGDA) of India announced on Sunday that the glitch in the government's new pension disbursement system SPARSH, which affected hundreds of ex-servicemen, has been resolved.

The CGDA, which is part of the defence ministry, stated that DR has been credited to their accounts. It ascribed the incident to “errors in banking data”.

"For January 2022, about 5 lakh monthly pensions were successfully issued through SPARSH." Dearness Relief (DR) for 1048 veterans who were left out owing to mistakes in banking data was corrected and paid within 48 hours of reporting. Efficient. Effective. "Digital," the CGDA stated on Twitter.

Employees and pensioners in the central government are eligible to DR equal to 31% of their basic income or pension. Due to the error, retired colonels, for example, were paid approximately 31,000 less than usual, and former lieutenant generals almost 37,000 less.

"I am pleased that the CGDA acted quickly in response to the media report, and I hope no further hiccups occur." "However, many of us still believe that there was no need to mess with the previous system, which placed pensions within the jurisdiction of banks," remarked a former lieutenant general.

The pension issues, which have now been resolved, arose after the government switched to a new online pension disbursing system, which is controlled by the Allahabad-based Principal Controller of Defence Accounts (Pensions), to simplify various aspects of defence pensions such as initiation, sanction, computation, revision, and disbursement.

The SPARSH, or System for Pension Administration (Raksha), the system involves crediting pensions directly into the accounts of former troops without the use of a middleman (banks). Officers affected were those who retired after 2016, as pensioners are being phased into the new system.

The SPARSH comprehensive pension package, an end-to-end online system, attempts to assure "the appropriate payment to the right pensioner at the right time through digital processing" of the pensions of more than three million defence retirees, according to PCDA (P).

According to the PCDA (P), the need for SPARSH was felt in order to avoid and address existing challenges in the pension sanctioning and disbursement process, such as "decentralised solutions existing in silos, manual intervention in processing, and a lack of centralised information for addressing pensioner queries."

Also read: SPARSH - System for Pension Administration (Raksha) implemented for defence pensioners