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| Principal Accountant General J&K pulls up Srinagar staff for delay in settlement of pension cases | | Asks staff & officers to eradicate corruption while showing empathy towards pensioners | | Jehangir Rashid
Early Times Report
SRINAGAR, Feb 14: Following the Early Times story about the corruption at the Srinagar office of Accountant General, Principal Accountant General Jammu & Kashmir Dr. Abhishek Gupta has shot a mail to Deputy Accountant General, Ajeet Kumar and expressed his displeasure over the delay in disposal of pension cases.
“I am observing that the progress in disposal of outstanding pension cases is very poor. Hardly any progress has been made in the last one month in Srinagar office. Moreover, I am personally getting a large number of complaints regarding prolonged delay in settlement of pension cases apparently due to raising of trivial queries by our concerned staff,” reads the email written by Dr. Gupta. The email reads, “There are many complaints of corruption also which is very disturbing. The Twitter handle which we started for grievance handling of pensioners is also flooded with complaints of raising of trivial queries by our office and consequent delay of processing of pension cases. We have already settled more than 50 pension cases that came to our queries by our people.”
“You would agree that the above is not a happy situation and not acceptable at all. I, therefore, urge upon you to gear yourself suitably and make an appropriate strategy for time bound settlement of all pending pension cases.
A few illustrative points that need immediate attention in this regard are indicated below,” reads the email.
Referring to the illustrative points the email said that raising of trivial/frivolous/meaningless queries should be strictly avoided. It said that all queries, if required, should be made in one go and under no circumstances queries should be raised at a later stage. It said that all cases must be processed within one month of receipt.
“In case there is some disparity/dispute regarding pay, pension may be authorized on basis of the undisputed pay, provisionally, by withholding some amount from the payable gratuity, if required. Cases should not be returned on this pretext. Public hearings should be organized at your level every day to hear the grievances of pensioners who should be provided with all the facilities for this purpose and should be treated with due respect and dignity,” reads the email.
The email reads the fact of holding of public hearings should be widely publicized through media (newspapers) and the official Twitter handle. It said that the activities should be followed meticulously on Twitter handle every day and try to settle the grievances within one week.
“Shri Rakesh Katyal, Secretary has already been handling grievances coming on Twitter as per my instructions. He should be given proper assistance by the staff of pension wing. The government instruction contained under Article 242 of J&K CSR should be followed in letter and spirit, as already decided,” reads the email.
The email said that a compendium of all contentious/disputed issues may be immediately got prepared along with standard methodology to settle the same so that it is not subject to any individual interpretation and there is no scope of individual discretion. It said that Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) should be adopted as a methodology with all the contentious issues uniformly across the board in future.
“Please identify areas/modules which we may automate in this pension function at our level (independently of what headquarters office is doing towards development of a Central Pension Application) so that we are able better and more efficient services to our pensioners to make their lives easy. I had advised this to you telephonically also last week,” reads the email.
The email said the staff doing the pension work should be suitably motivated to perform their duties and their problems, if any, may be treated with empathy. It may be ensured that the allotted staff of optimally utilized. It said that proper coordination may be established with other functional wings in the interest of the office to ensure that the entire office works as a unified team. The email asked the group officers to follow the same directions.
It would be in place to mention here that Early Times in its February 10 issue had published a story that Srinagar office of Accountant General of Jammu & Kashmir has become a hub of ‘corruption’ with the retiring employees being forced to visit the office for the settlement of pension cases that are pending there for months together.
A group of aggrieved retired employees had told the Early Times that the normal procedure of settling the pension related matters of a retired employee within 45 days is not being followed at the Srinagar office of Accountant General. They said the delay in settlement of pension cases results into a situation where-in pension of the retired employees gets unpaid for months together.
“The set procedure is that a retired employee should get all his pension benefits within a time period of 45 days, but this is not the case at the Srinagar office of Accountant General. The pension cases are pending for months with the pensioners along with the family members suffering on multiple counts,” said the retired employees.
The retirees said that pension cases at the Jammu office of Accountant General are settled within a month while in Srinagar office it takes at least three or four months for settlement of pension cases. The files are not disposed off with the concerned officials raising trivial queries,” said the retiring employees. |
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