Rules relaxed to ease sanction of pension in cases where govt servant dies in service

Vijay Mohan

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 1

The Central government has relaxed certain provisions in the pension rules to ease the sanction and payment of provisional family pension in cases where a government employee dies while in service.

Besides civilians, the new provisions have significance for the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs), where instances of death in service are relatively higher on account of the nature of their duties.

According to orders issued by the Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare (DoPPW) earlier this week, Rule 80-A of the Central Civil Services (Pension) Rules, which required the head of the office concerned to sanction and draw provisional family pension and death gratuity in favour of claimant after forwarding the case file and accompanying documents to the Pay and Accounts Office (PAO), has been relaxed.

The new orders state that if a claim for family pension along with death certificate and bank account details has been received and the head of office is satisfied that the claim is bonafide, he shall sanction provisional family pension immediately.

The head of office shall not wait for forwarding of the family pension case and other relevant documents to the PAO before sanctioning the provisional family pension.

In CAPF related cases, where death of an employee occurs during service, initially provisional family pension may be sanctioned without waiting for the final Operation Casualty Report, the DoPPW has directed.

The department observed that the process of forwarding the family pension case to PAO along with requisite documents itself takes a long time and in a large number of cases, provisional family pension and gratuity were not being sanctioned on death of a government servant. The delay in finalisation of family pension and gratuity resulted in hardship to the family of the deceased employee.

In accordance with rules, family pension is payable to the family of a government servant who dies in harness irrespective of the length of service rendered before his death, but the  amount of death gratuity, however, depends on the length of qualifying service of the individual. The new rules do not apply to sanction of provisional gratuity.

DoPPW has also directed that PAO shall release the provisional family pension on the basis of sanction order issued by the head of office without insisting for any other documents, including the service book. The provisional family pension shall be paid in the same manner as pay and allowances of the establishment are paid.