Defence Ministry to develop centralised payment system for Armed Forces

Kumar visited the office of Principal Controller of Defence Accounts (Officers) in Pune on Wednesday, where he presided over the inauguration of various projects and addressed officials.

“The three premier entities we cater to — the Army, Navy and the Air Force and other entities including Border Roads, DRDO and Coast Guard — have different legacy IT systems for matters related to payments of any kind. Traditionally, DAD has been dealing with these entities in the different IT platforms, but that is not the way forward. Over the past one year, we have been developing a centralised system to deal with the variety of entities through the integrated platform. The modern IT world provides tools for this. The United States’ Department of Defence, which deals with equally complex systems, has done the same,” said Rajnish Kumar.

“We have got various verticals like pay and personnel claims, seller payments, internal audit, pensions and others. All these verticals will be brought under the centralised system. We have worked on all aspects of the new system, including cyber security. We expect to complete the system by the end of the current financial year. By incorporating various AI tools, we will have a foolproof, safe and effective centralised system. A dedicated system for making payments of third party sellers will start functioning this month-end,” he added.

Principal Controller of Defence Accounts (Officers) Dr Rajeev Chavan, Deputy Controller Lehana Singh and Assistant Controller T Satish Kumar were present on the occasion.

When asked about the issue of over 58,000 military veterans not getting pensions in April, CGDA Rajnish Kumar said this was because these veterans were not able to complete the annual procedure of submitting a life certificate. The non-disbursement of these pensions was not related to the newly launched System for Pension Administration — Raksha — also known as SPARSH.

“The veterans were supposed to upload their life certificate on the SPARSH system for verification by November last year and the deadline was extended to April this year. But many could not do so by the end of April. Since the system is automated, they did not get their pension. But after receiving complaints from veterans, a one-time waiver has been given to avoid hardship and the payments were made within 48 hours. They have now been asked to complete the procedure furnishing life certificates this month,” he said.

Kumar said SPARSH has been successfully disbursing pensions to over five lakh military veterans who have retired after 2016. The remaining 28 lakh pensioners of the Armed Forces and defence civilians will soon be incorporated into the system in phases over the coming years, he said.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Defence Wednesday requested those defence pensioners who are yet to complete their annual identification and life certification, to complete the process by May 25 to ensure smooth processing of their monthly pensions. The MoD said that as per the data updated on May 17, as many as 43,774 pensioners who have migrated to SPARSH have not completed their annual identification, neither online nor through their respective banks. Further, nearly 1.2 lakh legacy pensioners and pre-2016 retirees, who continue to be on the old system of pension, have not completed their annual identification through any of the means available, it said.