There is no need for central government employees to visit banks to start pension as their copy of the Pension Payment Order (PPO) will be handed over to them at the time of retirement, the Personnel Ministry has said.

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Citing existing rules in this regard, the ministry, in a recent order issued to all central government departments, has said, "The pensioner is no longer required to visit the bank to activate the first payment of pension."

The rules also provide for an undertaking to be submitted by the retiring government servants or pensioners to the disbursing banks before the commencement of their pensions.

After ascertaining that the bank's copy (of PPO) has been dispatched by the Central Pension Accounting Office, the pensioner's copy is to be handed over to him at the time of retirement along with other retirement dues, the order said.

An employee posted at a location away from the head of office, or who for any other reasons feels that it would be more convenient to him to obtain his copy of the PPO from the bank, may inform the head of office of his option in writing while submitting his pension papers, it said.

In the recent past, many instances have come to the notice wherein the pensioner's copy of the PPO had not been handed over to him/her and instead had been sent to the bank and was lost in transit sometimes, thereby causing hardship to the pensioner, the order issued on August 1, said.

In view of these, all ministries/departments are once again requested to strictly follow the procedure henceforth and hand over the copy of the PPO to the pensioner at the time of retirement along with other retirement dues, except if the pensioner specifically requests for delivering his/her copy of the PPO through the bank, it said.

There are about 48 lakh central government employees and about 53 lakh pensioners. The pension gets delayed either due to the delay in receipt of intimation by the pensioner that relevant papers have reached the bank or because of delay on the part of the pensioner in approaching the bank for submission of undertaking, the personnel ministry had said in one of its earlier orders.

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