By TIOL News Service

NEW DELHI, JAN 11, 2018: THE Union Minister of State, Dr Jitendra Singh, has said that the services of superannuating and retired employees should be gainfully utilized to carry forward the flagship programmes of the Union Government.

Addressing the Pre-Retirement Counseling (PRC) Workshop ‘Sankalp’ for the retiring employees of Ministries, organised by the Department of Pensions & Pensioners' Welfare (DOP&PW) here today, Dr. Jitendra Singh said that the superannuating employees can be inducted into advisory bodies of their respective offices and also to dispose of grievances. Due to increasing life expectancy, an active life lies ahead of an employee at sixty years of age and the individual is at his prime capacity and energetic. Retirement should rather be viewed as the beginning of a new innings, he said. Such interactive workshops should come out with ideas on how best the services of retired employees can be utilized, he added.

Dr Jitendra Singh said for the first time this Government has cared for Pensioners as much as for the working employees. Minimum pension has been raised to Rs.1,000, Jeevan Pramaan biometrics introduced for submitting digital Life Certificate, more than 1,500 obsolete rules scrapped and the Anubhav platform introduced for the first time for retiring employees to share their experience.

In his address, Shri KV Eapen, Secretary, DOP&PW and Secretary, Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances (DARPG), said the DOP&PW has so far registered more than 2,000 pensioners and conducted Pre-Retirement Counselling for more than 3,300 employees under the Sankalp project. The Department has registered 19 Pensioners' Associations and 16 NGOs to involve Central Government Pensioners in social activities.

The PRC workshops target retiring personnel two to two-and-a-half years before the retirement date. Topics covered are (i) Formalities to be covered for timely payment of retirement dues (ii) Financial planning for the amounts received at retirement (iii) Preparation of Will (iv) CGHS facilities after retirement and (v) Post-retirement opportunities through Sankalp.

The “Sankalp’ programme has been initiated by the Department towards this end and a web portal of the same name has also been launched. Pensioners, Pensioner Associations and NGOs can register on the website http//www.pensionersportal.gov.in/sankalp.

There are approximately 40,000 fresh retirees every year from the Central Government Civil establishments alone. This number could be close to 1,00,000 including defense, railways, posts and telecom. In addition there is a pool of around 50 lakh existing pensioners.