7th Pay Commission latest relief: Boost for NPS-AR pensioners! No need to submit Life Certificate in Treasury Office, banks to do the job

7th Pay Commission: The Central Government has provided huge relief to the NPS-AR (New Pension Scheme — Additional Relief) subscribers. In the new decision taken by the Centre, these pensioners need not rush from pillar to post in the treasury offices to submit their Life Certificate to continue to avail benefits of their pension. The Ministry of Finance has directed the respective Indian banks to send periodical certificates of the pensioners to the Central Pension Accounts Office (CAPO) for getting the Life Certificate. This scheme is for the NPS-AR (New Pension Scheme — Additional Relief) subscribers. Pensioners should know that they will just have to submit their life certificates to banks as before.

For information of the readers, as per the old norms, each pensioner has to submit a Life Certificate between November 1 to November 30 each year to banks in order to continue pension benefits. Failing to do that leads to discontinuation of the pension account. 

See Zee Business Live TV streaming below:

However, after receiving complaints that banks are non-cooperative in receiving the Life Certificate of pensioners and sending it to the CAPO on time, the Finance Ministry had to take this decision. Now, banks have to be more vigilant in accepting and sending on the Life Certificates of pensioners.

The Finance Ministry has made it clear that it's the job of the bank with whom a pension account is attached to receive the Life Certificate of the pensioners and send it to the CAPO on time. They have sent the guidelines to the banks in written to follow the procedure in the future.

So, for NPS-AR subscribers, from November 2020, the same will be submitted by banks in the form of an electronic copy of Life Certificate. 

Hailing the Central Government's decision Harishankar Tiwari, Former President at AG Brotherhood said, "This decision is applicable on NPS-AR as old pensioners are already getting their benefit. Now, banks will have to send Life Certificate of the NPS-AR subscribers to the CAPO as well."

The Finance Ministry is trying to digitize the pension system as well. The ministry officials are working hard to shift the pension system from BSR (Basic Statistical Return) to IFSC (Indian Financial System Code). The Finance Ministry has taken Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in its loop and the Apex Indian Bank has given its nod to the ministry's move. RBI's nod makes sense because the BSR code is issued by the RBI. BSR code is of 7 digits of which the first 3 digits represent the bank while the last four digits represent the branch. IFSC (Indian Financial System Code) is the unique code of the bank, which is useful during electronic money transfer transactions.