Awareness of field officials and pensioners is of utmost importance to ensure implementation and usage of the benefits of the Centre's welfare measures, the Union Personnel Ministry said on Wednesday.

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The Department of Pension & Pensioners' Welfare (DoPPW) will take policy initiatives to address issues faced by field officials and pensioners, it said.

This was deliberated during a two-day bankers' awareness programme organised by the DoPPW here on August 30-31, 2022 for officers of Punjab National Bank (PNB) handling pension related work, covering the northern region of the country.

A team of officers from DoPPW took various sessions on pension policy reforms and digitisation regarding disbursement of pension to central government pensioners, with the objective of updating the field functionaries of PNB, the ministry said in a statement.

Special sessions were organised on income tax matters related to pensioners as well as digital means of submitting the annual life certificates, the statement said.

Chief Controller (Pension), Central Pension Accounting Office (CPAO), shared the reasons for the causes for pensioners' grievances and suggested actions which may be taken by the bank for faster redressal, it said.

Discussions were held for linking of integrated pension portal developed by DoPPW with the existing portals of PNB to provide seamless services to pensioners.

Awareness of field officials and pensioners is of utmost importance to ensure implementation and usage of the benefits of government of India's welfare measures, the statement said.

Pensioners' welfare initiatives, such as face authentication technology for digital life certificate may be advertised extensively by banks, it added.

Digital life certificate and face authentication technology would be a game changer for pensioners and banks in submission of life certificates, the statement said.

As such, these awareness programmes serve as a huge capacity building exercise for bank officials, it added.

This programme was the first such awareness programme for central pension processing centres and field functionaries handling pension related work in PNB.

It is expected that through these programmes, the objective of enhancing ?ease of living' of pensioners will be achieved to a great extent, the statement said.

On similar lines, awareness programmes will be conducted in collaboration with other pension disbursing banks in the current year 2022-23, it added.

Bankers' awareness programme, Amritsar, 30th & 31st August, 2022 was concluded by Sanjiv N Mathur, Joint Secretary, DoPPW.

Detailed feedback was taken from bank officers on various policy issues to make proactive changes to ensure ease of living of pensioners, the statement said.