BackCentre disburses ₹3,090 cr to defence pensioners in Aug via SPARSH
The Centre recorded a milestone by registering more than 5.6 lakh pensioners on the digital platform. Approximately ₹3,090 crore has been disbursed to these pensioners digitally during the month.
PremiumThe Defence Ministry on Friday announced the record disbursement to defence pensioners via the SPARSH (System for Pensions Administration) in August month. The Centre recorded a milestone by registering more than 5.6 lakh pensioners on the digital platform. Approximately ₹3,090 crore has been disbursed to these pensioners digitally during the month.
In a statement, the ministry said, "providing impetus to Digital India initiative, the System for Pensions Administration – RakSHa or SPARSH has disbursed more than ₹3,090 crore to Defence Pensioners digitally in the month of August 2022. In another milestone, 5,62,946 Defence Pensioners migrated successfully onto the digital platform of SPARSH in August 2022."
Notably, the total number of pensioners onboarded to SPARSH has crossed over the one million mark with 11 lakh beneficiaries, which is nearly 33% of the total defence pensioners in India.
"This transformational change has been made possible only through incremental innovations," the ministry said.
A web-based system, SPARSH processes pension claims and credits the pension directly into the bank accounts of defence pensioners without any external intermediary.
In FY22, the disbursement vis SPARSH skyrocketed to a whopping ₹11,600 crore compared to a merely ₹57 crore disbursement in FY21.
The Defence Accounts Department is the nodal implementing agency of Project SPARSH, integrating over 3000 pension initiating, sanctioning, and disbursement agencies.
The ministry said, "it has brought pension services right at the doorstep of the veterans – from the digital process of pensioner verification to real-time tracking of grievance redressal."
SPARSH has been introduced for meeting the pension sanction and disbursement requirements for Armed Forces viz. Army, Navy, Air Force, and Defence Civilians.
The portal provides a single window for pensioners to avail the pension related services such as the facility to view pension details, pension entitlements, pensioner profile details, Income Tax forms, etc.
The platform aims at enabling the service personnel to verify his/her details before sanctioning of pension. On the basis of details verified in PDV, the PPO is generated and pensionary entitlements are sanctioned.
Also, SPARSH allows real-time status tracking of your application where you can view the present status of the application and check its pendency/progress in each department.
Unlock a world of Benefits! From insightful newsletters to real-time stock tracking, breaking news and a personalized newsfeed – it's all here, just a click away! Login Now!
