7th Central Pay Commission in respect of the Post-01.01.2016 retired Armed Forces Pensioners/ Family Pensioners

7th Central Pay Commission in respect of the Post-01.01.2016 retired Armed Forces Pensioners/ Family Pensioners

Office of the Principal CDA(Pensions)
Draupadi Ghat, Allahabad- 211014

Circular No.588

Dated: 20.10.2017

To
1. The Chief Accountant, RBI, Deptt. Of Govt Bank Accounts, Central Office, C-7, Second Floor, Bandra-Kurla Complex, P B No. 8143, Bandra East, Mumbai- 400051
2. CMDs, All Public Sector Banks.
3. The Nodal Officers, ICICI/HDFC/AXIS/IDBI Banks
4. All Managers, CPPCs
5. Military and Air Attache, Indian Embassy, Kathmandu, Nepal
6. The PCDA (WC), Chandigarh
7. The CDA (PD), Meerut
8. The CDA, Chennai
9. PCDA(O), Pune
10. The Director of Treasuries, All States
11. The Pay and Accounts Officer, Delhi Administration, R K Puram; and Tis Hazari, New Delhi.
12. The Pay and Accounts Office, Govt of Maharashtra, Mumbai
13. The Post Master, Kathua (J&K), and Camp Bell Bay.
14. The Principal Pay and Accounts Officer, Andaman and Nicobar Administration, Port Blair.

Subject: Implementation of Govt. decision on the recommendations of the Seventh Central Pay Commission in respect of the Post-01.01.2016 retired Armed Forces Pensioners/ Family Pensioners : Reg. New PPO Series.

Office of the PCDA (Pension) Allahabad was in the process to implement e-PPO's for all categories of pensioners. In the first phase, corrigendum PPOs to revise pension of Pre- 2016 defence civilian pensioners have been issued through e-PPOs. Various PDAs have already revised pension of such pensioners. A new PPO series was introduced for these corrigendum PPOs which contained 12 digits with PPO suffix of 4 digits. For this purpose, only electronic PPOs (e-PPO) were generated which were digitally signed. No physical PPO was printed and sent to any agency. These new PPO (e-PPO) also contained a QR code wherein all important data was embedded. This QR code could be used by PDA's to capture the data.

2. Now, it has been decided to discontinue issue of physical PPOs in respect of ICOs and JCOs/ORs of Indian Army w.e.f. October, 2017. In other words, in respect of fresh retirees of Indian Army (retiring or being discharged) from the month of October, 2017, only e-PPO will be issued with following features

(a) These documents will be digitally signed.
(b) These PPOs will contain 16 digits to identify the PPO (12 digits PPO No. and 4 digits as PPO suffix).
(c) They will contain a QR code where data of various fields will be embedded.

3. These e-PPOs will be sent to the banks through SFTP connectivity which this office has established with various banks. Other banks, with whom there is no SFTP connectivity, are advised to immediately take necessary measures to establish the same. In the interim period till the time they establish SFTP connectivity, PPOs will be sent through email id pcdapedp.cgda@nic.in . Similarly, these PPOs will be sent to DPDOs through the CGDA WAN. Other PDAs such as Director of all State Treasuries; IE Kathmandu, Nepal; Post Office, Kathua; PAO, Delhi etc are requested to kindly immediately provide an email ID of .nic or any other domain under control of government for this purpose. Regarding submission of e-Scroll, PDAs are requested to refer to para 6 of this office Circular No. C- 169 dated 11.07.2017. All PDAs are requested to strictly follow the procedure prescribed therein.

4. The procedure of forwarding the e-PPOs will be as under:

(a) For JCOs/ORs: A copy of e-PPOs, duly digitally signed, will be sent electronically to Record Offices (ROs). The concerned RO, after scrutinising and checking the e-PPO, is requested to forward a hard copy of the e-PPO (after printing from the PDF file) along with Descriptive Roll of the pensioner to PDA concerned. ROs are also requested to kindly provide a copy of the e-PPO to the Armed Forces Pensioners/ Family Pensioners for their record either as hard copy or through e-mail as deemed fit. If any discrepancy is observed by the RO in e-PPO or death occurs before the date of retirement/discharge, then this fact may be immediately brought to the notice of PSA for remedial measures. PDAs are advised to affect payment based on e-PPO after confirmation from Record Office concerned in the form of receipt of hard copy of e-PPO and Descriptive Roll.

(b) For Commissioned Officers: A copy of e-PPOs, duly digitally signed, will be sent electronically to Army HQ. In order to have enhanced security in the process, the Army HQ after scrutinising and checking the e-PPO, is requested to forward a hard copy of the e-PPO (after printing from the PDF file) to the PDA concerned. The Army HQ is also requested to kindly provide a copy of the e-PPO to the Armed Forces Pensioners/ Family Pensioners for their record either as hard copy or through e-mail as deemed fit. If any discrepancy is observed by the Army HQ in e-PPO or death occurs before the date of retirement, then this fact may be immediately brought to the notice of PSA for remedial measures. PDAs may commence the payment of pension on basis of e-PPO and Descriptive Roll from this office and hard copy of e-PPO received through Army HQ.

One copy of the e-PPO will also be sent to the PCDA(O) , Pune in respect of all Commissioned Officers. PCDA(O), Pune is requested to check all entries printed in the e- PPO with reference to the LPC-Cum-Datasheet forwarded by them. In case any discrepancy is noticed, the same should be immediately brought into the notice of this office.

5. Process of verification of e-PPOs; PDAs shall take the following steps:

(a) On receipt of e-PPOs though the medium specified above, PDAs shall verify the genuineness of the digital signature affixed on the e-PPO.
(b) Name of authorised signatories who have been provided digital signature through e- Mudra by this office for signing of e-PPO digitally will be made available on website of PCDA(P) Allahabad at URL www.pcdapension.nic.in. All PDAs are requested to refer to the website of this office and check the name of such authorised signatories for the purpose of digital signature on e-PPO accordingly in order to ensure that no PPO with unauthorised signature is acted upon.

(c) PDAs shall wait for the confirmation from the Army HQ / Record Office as the case may be, before releasing the first payment and starting pension payment monthly.

(d) It shall also be confirmed by the PDA that the payment is not being released again in respect of same PPO number (including the PPO suffix of 4 digits) to the pensioner inter-alia due to duplicate receipt of e-PPO. In such a scenario, the PDA will inform the PSA that the event of duplicate transmission of the given PPO has been detected and no action on such e-PPOs except the first one has been taken. 6. Pension certificate issued by this office in respect of JCOs/ORs is discontinued with immediate effect.

7. The PPO series circulated by this office Circular No. 571 dated 19.12.2016 in case of JCO/ORs and Circular No. 27 dated 24.11.2016 in case of ICOs stand withdrawn with immediate effect except for those PPO's which pertain to blocks of manual PPO's. Also, PPO series for Defence Civilians which have been circulated by this office will continue to be in force till e-PPOs are started in respect of Defence Civilians by this office.

8. The change statement regarding addition or deletion of pensioners on the strength of the Pension Disbursing Authorities may be forwarded to this office in Annexure "E" to this office Circular No. 189 dated 28.02.2017 in CSV format to e-mail ID pcdap- account.cgda@nic.in . A hard copy of this change statement may also be forwarded to Shri K K Pant, SAO, O I/C Audit Section, Office of the Principal CDA (P), Allahabad-211014 in usual manner in terms of Para 17 of Annexure 'H' to Scheme for payment of pension of Defence Pensioners by Public Sector Banks and para 126 of Defence Pension Payment Instructions (DPPI) -2013.

9. Separate communication will be issued by office of PCDA(Navy) Mumbai and Office of CDA(AF) New Delhi regarding implementation of e-PPO in respect of Pensioners of Indian Navy and Indian Air Force respectively.

(AK Malviya)
Sr. AO (P)