MoD releases pension for 58K veterans as 'one-time measure' after facing criticism

Following a row on the blockage of pension for a section of military personnel, the Defence Ministry on Wednesday clarified that it is releasing the April pension of 58,275 veterans as a one-time measure despite not having updated identification documents and appealed to them to complete the formalities so that a similar situation would not recur next month.

With retired Service officials including former Northern Army Commander Gen DS Hooda criticising the Centre for not releasing the retirement benefits to a section of the veterans, the ministry explained that such a situation arose in the absence of an identification document that the retired officers and jawans had to share with the ministry’s pension disbursal department.

The ministry said all pensioners were required to complete the annual identification in order to continue receipt of monthly pension, which is usually done in the month of November by all banks acting as pension disbursing agencies.

Due to the Covid-19 situation, the Government had extended the window for annual identification due on November 30, 2021, up to March 31, 2022.

Accordingly, the automated system has been disbursing monthly pensions to over five lakh pensioners successfully up to March 31.

However, during the processing of pension for April 2022, it came to light that the annual identification of around 3.3 lakh pensioners was not updated.

A list was shared with all banks to share the updated identification data. As a result identification status of more than 2.65 lakh pensioners was updated on the system by April 25 leading to the successful processing of pensions for all these pensioners.

But the banks could not confirm identification for 58,275 pensioners and neither was their identification received directly on the system by the time of monthly closing. Hence, these pensioners were not paid their April pension by April 30, 2022.

In order to avoid hardship for such pensioners, a one-time special waiver has been accorded to these 58,275 pensioners who have now been advised to get their identification done by May 25, 2022.