Video Conference on 5 th October 2010 Points for Discussion with Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Department of Pension and Pensioners' Welfare, 3rd Floor, Loknayak Bhavan, Khan Market, New Delhi –

Points for Discussion Interaction with offices. Interaction with PSA and PDA. Standardising information in PPO. Calculators to help offices and pensioners. Re-employment of pensioners. Additional page on Pensioners’ Portal. Old age homes.

Interaction with offices. Local problems. Local offices. Local Pensioners’ association. Periodicity. Minutes of Discussion. Follow-up Directives be issued by higher office to all subordinate offices. A communication channel should be made available to all offices of the association.

Interaction with PSA and PDA. Type of difficulties faced by pensioners. Expectations from PSA. Expectation from PDA. How it would help pensioners? Method of interaction. Procedure for interaction.

Standardising information in PPO. (page 1) (Additional information needed) Type of Pension. Pay scale. Last pay and grade pay drawn. Last 10 month’s average pay drawn. Dearness allowance on the Last pay. Pensionable service. basic pension. Commuted portion of pension. Remainder of pension payable.

Standardising information in PPO. (page 2) (Additional information needed) Date of restoration of pension. Date (s) additional pension authorised. Family pensioners: Names, respective Birth dates and Priority. Amount and date up to which enhanced family pension payable. Amount and date from which normal family pension payable. Date (s) additional family pension authorised. Whether FMA authorised. Address of section in a office who need to be contacted for clarification and redressal of grievances. Address of information officer and appellate authority under right to information act 2005.

Calculators to help offices and pensioners. Machines transfer skills. Calculators help even novice in estimation with improved quality and speed. Association developed calculators for 6 th CPC. These calculators helped pensioners in calculating arrears. New calculators needed for estimating terminal benefits, pension payslips etc. Association is ready to develop calculators. Ministry should either develop calculators or test calculators developed by association and provide to all PSAs and PDAs.

Re-employment of pensioners Improvement in health of pensioners. Jobs not involving financial responsibility. Sudden increase in office work for a period of time. Working employees could be given work involving financial responsibility and or confidential-secret work. Pensioners can be employed on contract basis for a specific period of time.

Additional pages on Pensioners’ Portal Pensioners' portal is well managed. Information is highly useful and available. Needs checking 22 items/categories to find latest circulars/orders. New orders/circulars for a particular month may be listed on a single page. This page may last for 2-3 months i. e. after say 3 months the page may be deleted or edited.

Old age homes. Old age homes are provided for senior citizens. Government may provide infrastructure for old age homes for pensioners. Maintenance and operation may be given to pensioners’ association. Association should charge residence of such homes for maintenance etc. Government should provide funds for infrastructure maintenance.

Views/suggestions: Strategic Plan for next five years (sent earlier) Information submitted earlier is as under:- Infrastructure facilities Information facilities Discussion and Coordination Implementation of accepted provisions Suggestions.

Infrastructure facilities (sent earlier) This association is the oldest association for pensioners in India and celebrated her Diamond jubilee on December All pensioners (retired from Departments, Ministries, Services, Posts, Autonomous Bodies, PSUs) are eligible to get membership of this Association. Association has website Website enabled us to reach pensioners all over India. We get enquiries from various places in India for opening branches. However, we have financial constraints. We are not in a position to provide infrastructure for branches. This includes office accommodation, communication facilities, modern facilities for apprising pensioners in respect of pension and other facilities provided by the government etc. Presently, there is provision for providing accommodation to Senior Citizens' Associations. Similar provision should be made in a phased manner for central government pensioners' associations. CPWD provides residential, office and rest house accommodation for central government offices. Possibility of CPWD providing accommodation should be explored. Pensioners' association like ours should be given suitable office accommodation well connected by transport facilities available in the area. You are requested to visit website to have broad information and activities of our association..

Information facilities (sent earlier) We do realise efforts taken by Department of Pensions & Pensioners' Welfare. However, all pensioners are not in a position to take advantage of your website. Association is in a position to reach to pensioners and apprise them about the efforts taken by you, facilities provided by the government and how they can be benefited. In addition pensioners can be guided to take up social work for benefit of the nation. There is an inescapable need to have modern equipment for display and presentation. This would be laptops, projectors, PA equipment etc.

Discussion and Coordination (sent earlier) Video conference should be organised say twice a year. During this conference associations can project pending issues which need attention of ministries and also issues needing policy decisions. Experience of the association is if these are discussed at appropriate level, solution is found comfortably and quickly. Higher offices should direct their subordinate offices to give adequate time to this association for discussion.

Implementation of accepted provisions (sent earlier) Government of India after accepting recommendations of the sixth central pay commission gave responsibility of implementation primarily to pension disbursing authorities. CPAO and concerned account offices were made responsible for issuing revised PPO (may be corrigendum to PPO). This has not been implemented fully till date. There should be a nodal agency apart from grievances cell to deal with all accepted provisions. You are requested to get orders issued for a nodal officer and his/her postal address, address and telephone number be placed on pensioners' portal. Such nodal officers may be appointed at all levels i. e. ministry/department/region/state/zone etc..

CGHS and CSMA (sent earlier) The Government of India has come up with a new proposal for health scheme for employees and pensioners. All India Central Government Pensioners' Association had given publicity to this scheme through website, quarterly bulletin and monthly meetings of members at various branches. After thorough discussion association has concluded to reject this scheme. Instead, the government should extend CGHS and CSMA to all pensioners and give them choice to accept one of these. Further, CGHS recognised hospitals should be available down to tehsil places. The government may be in a position to make it compulsory for hospitals run by various social trusts. Similarly the government also should make it compulsory to hospitals which have been given land at subsidised rate to treat CGHS beneficiaries.

Suggestions (sent earlier) Welfare fund: The government should have a welfare fund similar to prime minister's fund to help needy pensioners. Legal cell: The government should establish a legal cell at appropriate places for giving legal advise to pensioners in respect of pension and dues. Reemployment: Pensioners are active even after retirement. Many ministries and offices are facing staff shortage. Certain type of jobs do not need permanent staff. In order to profitably use the pensioners power (man power) they may be offered employment at various levels. The age limit should not be fixed arbitrarily but should depend on individual capacity with a guide line of say 68 years. Recovery from Pension: There should be time limit for recovery from pension on account of over payment in pension. Suggested time limit is 6 months. Pension Rules 1972: There had been many amendments to pension rules since issue. It is recommended that Pension rules 2010 be prepared taking in to account all amendments so far issued.

Suggestions (sent earlier) Additional pension: Additional pension has provided solace to pensioners and we are grateful to the government. However, this should start from the age of 65 years in place of 80 years. Therefore, revised rule for additional pension should be 20% for those who complete 65 years but not 70 years, 30% on completion of 70 years, 40% for 75 years, 50% for 80, 60% for 85, 70% for 90, 80% for 95 and 100% for 100 years. Pay and pension structure: This association has found that while fixing pay and pension after accepting recommendations of VIth CPC, employees, pensioners, PDAs had to struggle hard while estimating revised pay/pension. We recommend that this procedure be streamlined to make it easy and workable. We suggest that following principles be used in prescribing new pay scales. Pay scales could be just 4 numbers i. e. one pay scale for every group (i. e. A, B, C & D). This pay scale should take in to account growing annual increment after every specific period say 7 years. Starting basic pay in each of the groups shall depend on the responsibilities. Care should be taken that highest basic pay in any of the groups could be reached only by a person having highest responsibilities. For pensioners notional pay fixation in the revised scale should be done before fixation of pension irrespective when the pensioner retired. Mailing list: This association should be put in the mailing list so that all orders and circulars pertaining to pensioners would be endorsed to this association on the address given.

Thanks and Appeal All India Central Government Pensioners’ Association thanks Department of Pension & Pensioners' Welfare for organising this video conference. Association shall remain grateful if such a conference is organised at least once in 6 months. This association appeals to all other similar associations to join us in the broad interest of pensioners. Those who wish to join would have autonomous status and would represent region/zone.