SPARSH PENSION SCHEME NEEDS IMPROVEMENT

Brig CS Vidiyasagar (Retd)
its beyond comprehension why Govt is forcing ESM pension to be paid from non tested sparsh application . Its a total harrasment to ESM staying in villages or far away in hill areas , how will they coupe up with internet technology .

the Bank system of payment was tested and tried but govt has listed out mant advanges which have not been accepted by ESM. No detailed lectures or literatures available resulting in dead end of sparsh . Now Defence Secretary Assures NO More Migration till All
Mistakes in Software of SPARSH are removed
Govt of India, Ministry of Defence embarked on Central
Pension disbursal system for Ex-Servicemen and widows as per
the vision of Hon’ble PM of digitization. The new system of
Central Pension disbursal is called System for Pension
Administration for Rakshak (SPARSH). There is no difference
in receipt of pension in that the banks will continue to remit the
pension to the Ex-Servicemen. The only difference is SPARSH
will act as Central Pension Processing Centres of 28 PSU banks
and 4 private banks from nowonwards. They say all
improvements in pension in future will be done centrally.
Motto : Correct Pension at Right Time. They assured all
the services rendered now by banks such as (a) issue of pension
slips every month (b) deduction of income tax (c) annual life
certificate generation will all be done by SPARSH. Every
pensioner shall be issued with a smart card where his PPO and
other details shall be embedded.
SPARSH was initially tried in 2020 on few pensioners by
taking their data from their pension paying banks. Then they
embarked on mass migration of pensioners to SPARSH. As on
27 Dec 2022, 22,51,371 have been migrated with the promise
that right pension at right time. Has this motto been achieved is
the moot question? There are unending problems the
pensioners are facing on migration to SPARSH. The major four
problems are : (a) stoppage of pension by banks the moment
the data of pensioner has been sent to SPARSH though the
pensioner is yet to be migrated. Pension of such Ex-Servicemen
and widows has been stopped since Sep 2022.The banks say the
pension is no more their responsibility and SPARSH says they
cannot give pension of previous months as the Ex-Servicemen
or widow is not yet migrated. (b) widows are unable to upload
death certificate and (c) Many Ex-Servicemen and widows have
not got E-PPOs introduced since Jan 2016 and (d) till date not even one PPO or pension slip has been correctly generated.
There are plenty of mistakes in PPO.
CGDA has entered into contract with TCS, the software
developer to provide hardware support and software support at
a cost of Rs 250 crores for a period of five years. The software
for SPARSH is to be made by TCS after SPARSH team gives
them their user requirements. As on today not even one correct
PPO or pension slip has been issued. The married Ex-
serviceman is shown as un-married and wife is shown as dead
since 01 Jan 1970 though it appears to be a dummy data. It is
very clear from the way the SPARSH has been functional since
Apr 2021 that it is a disaster. If choice is given to migratercd
pensioners, they all will migrate back to old system i.e. legacy
system.
It is not clear TCS a world class software developer cannot
make a simple software? Sri Giridahr Aramamane, IAS,
Defence Secretary, during seminar on SPASH on 14 Dec 2022
near Army Base Hospital in Delhi Cantt during his address has
advised TCS and SPARSH team to sit together and sort out all
problems in SPARSH and make it user friendly. He informed
that in the Ministry of Agriculture of Union Govt, details of two
crore farmers from 30 states and all Union Territories were
collected in just six months by asking just three simple data (a)
Mobile no (b) Aadhaar No and (c) Bank account no. He
wondered why SPARSH is taking so much time to collect data
from just 33 lakh pensioners? He also told that he, Secretary,
Min of Def (ESW) and FADS of Min of Def will sit together
periodically and review the progress of SPARH. Def Secy
assured the pensioners that till all the glitches in SPARSH are
removed, SPARSH will not be thrust on them.