More than a year after the Ministry of Defence (MoD) switched to a new pension-disbursing software for veterans, nearly 1.20 lakh individuals are yet to migrate, prompting a group of veterans to petition the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC).

The MoD introduced ‘System for Pension Administration – Raksha (SPARSH)’, a flagship Digital India initiative. Last year, it migrated data for all pensioners, though several lakhs could not be transferred and are being addressed gradually.

On December 15, the MoD stated that 31.69 lakh defence pensioners have been onboarded to SPARSH.

A Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence report, tabled in the House on 9 December, put the total number of defence pensioners at 32,94,181. This includes 6,40,536 defence civilian pensioners and 26,79,645 armed forces pensioners.

The MoD added that 94.3% of the 6.43 lakh cases with discrepancies have migrated from previous systems, with 6.07 lakh normalised without affecting entitlements.

Grievance redressal time has fallen from 56 days to 17 days, the MoD noted. SPARSH has replaced a fragmented system—previously managed by over 45,000 agencies—with a unified, transparent, and accountable digital framework.

Extensive outreach has targeted elderly and non-tech-savvy pensioners. For the nationwide Digital Life Certificate (DLC)—required annually to continue pensions—the Defence Accounts Department mobilised 202 offices, 4.63 lakh Common Service Centres, and 15 partner banks. Consequently, 20.94 lakh people obtained their DLCs, the highest among all departments, the MoD said.

In FY 2024–25, a defence pension budget of ₹1,57,681 crore was disbursed in real time via SPARSH. OROP-III, implemented in July 2024, enabled swift payment of ₹1,224.76 crore to 20.17 lakh beneficiaries within 15 days.

Yet, away from the MoD’s claims, Lt Col RK Bhardwaj (Retd), representing affected ex-servicemen (ESM) pensioners, has petitioned the NHRC for intervention.

The petition alleges that data migration relied on outdated legacy pension payment orders (issued 1976–2016) rather than post-7th Pay Commission orders, depriving many pensioners of entitled benefits.

Most pensioners, being less educated, non-tech-savvy, and living in remote villages or small towns, cannot lodge individual complaints via the online portal or offline forms, the petition states.