ISLAMABAD: The Directorate of Pakistan Post, has started to revamp the pension disbursement system of retired military officials.
The is triggered, when in recent door to door pension disbursement, contacts of around 400,000 veteran pensioners could not be tallied.
The delivery of pensions at their steps was started in March this year. The process suffered a halt earlier this month when couriers of Pakistan Post reported that they were not able to verify hundreds of thousands of military pensioners at their given addresses.
The special facility was started to facilitate senior citizens due to COVID-19 Pandemic. Pakistan Post has constituted a three-member committee to verify and validate the records of military pensioners.
Pakistan Post Office is one of the oldest public entities of the Sub-Continent. After independence 1947, it began functioning as the Department of Post & Telegraph.
In 1962 it was separated from the Telegraph & Telephone and started working as an independent attached department and nowadays it works under administrative control of Ministry of Communication.
Pakistan Post has been paying the pensions, on behalf of Pakistan Armed Forces to the retired Military personals through their Savings Bank Account since 01-07-1993.
An official communication, a copy of which available with ‘The News Today’ revealed that Directorate General of Pakistan Post while halting the payments to pensioners at their door step, formed a three member committee to verify and validate the records of pensioners of Armed Forces.
According to the official communiqué PMP/262/PDVF/19 a three member committee heading by Maria Ahmed, Additional Post Master General (APMG) will complete the process of verification/validation the records of retired employees of Pakistan Armed Forces and submit the report to directorate general Pakistan Post till 25th of May.
A senior official of Pakistan Post informed the scribe that the decision has been taken by Additional Director General-Finance (ADG-F) after close door meetings with high officials of federal ministry of communication.
The administrative and policy matters of Pakistan Post are controlled by ministry of communication heading by federal minister Murad Saeed.
Another official communiqué Dy.DG (SI).4-01/2020 issued by Pakistan Post’s directorate of postal service, tagged 0.399 million retired personnel of armed forces as ghost pensioners. This is a huge number in 1.253 million military pensioners.
As per Pakistan Post record, there are 0.941 million pensioners from Pakistan Army, 93,000 military pensioners belonged to Pakistan Air Force, 32,216 from Pakistan Navy, while another 61,722 are from Frontier Constabulary (FC).
During 2016, the office of Controller of Military Accounts (CMAP) initiated the process of validating pensioners by introducing Pensioners Data Validation Forms (PDVF). This process has not concluded yet.
According to Pakistan Post, the record of pensioners does not reconcile; there are discrepancies in records in different circles, DAPPO, CMAP and Head Quarter Pakistan Post. Even the total number of pensioners varies in different records.
“Confusing and puzzled categories of pensioners have been kept in the record which also contains duplicate entries. Doubly counted pensioners exist at GPO/Sub Office Level”, an official report of Pakistan Post says regarding the record of pensioners available with it.
“In light of above, Secretary Communications has taken a serious view regarding the non-completion of Army Pensioners data as per PDVF. In order to complete the process of verification and validation it has been decided that all remaining pensioners are termed as ‘ghost’ too whom PPOD has not able to deliver the pension payments at their door step” the official report further said.
The process of verification and validation of pensioners would involve two step approach. Information required from pensioners to complete the PDVF (At the pensioner level), and updating of record of pensioners pending in Post-Office (At Post Office level).
Pakistan Post claimed it would complete verification task by May 20, 2020. Amid these bureaucratic glitches, many military pensioners are suffering. They have criticized the decision of Pakistan Post to halt the pension payments without any advance announcements and demanded the Prime Minister to take notice. They also questioned the timing of the move.
According to a senior official of Pakistan Post, for executing the new process tagged pensioners would have to contact their respective regional offices for verification.
“In the current circumstances when there is COVID-19 Pandemic, it will be very difficult for pensioners to approach regional offices from remote areas. This will multiply the miseries of these senior citizens”, another official privy to the development remarked.
Despite repeatedly attempts, this scribe could not reach out to Director General (DG) Pakistan post Muhammad Ikhlaqi Rana and federal minister of Communications Murad Saeed to record their official comment on this serious issue.
Pakistan Post provides an extensive range of products and services to cater personals and business needs of various segments of society. These traditional services constitute the core business of the Pakistan Post.
Beside its core business, Pakistan Post is also performing many other Agency and Financial functions. The Payment to the Military Pensioners is the one of mega function of Pakistan Post.
Read Original Report: Pakistan Post Report on Military Pensions
