BHUBANESWAR: In a bid to ensure that pension payments are made timely to the retired employees and their families, the State government has initiated process for issue of electronic pension payment order (e-PPO), gratuity payment order (e-GPO) and commuted value of pension order (e-CPO).
As part of the 5T initiative, the e-PPOs, e-GPOs and e-CPOs will be issued by the office of Controller of Accounts (CoAs) under the digital signature of authorised officers for disbursement of pension by treasury officers. The application for pension is usually examined and sanctioned by the head of office and pension sanctioning authority (PSA) respectively and then it is submitted to the CoA for authorisation of pensionary benefits.
After authorisation, the pension payment order, commuted value pension and gratuity payment order are physically transmitted from the office of CoA to the treasury, pension sanctioning authority and the pensioner. “This often leads to delay in final pension disbursement and possibility of loss of physical documents besides the difficulties in drawal particulars leading to provisional payment of retirement benefits. But the new digital system will do away with the delayed process and help in early disbursement besides retrieval and storage of pension documents for pensioners,” said a finance department official.