The Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare (DoPPW) issued revised guidelines for addressing Central Government pensioners’ grievances on the CPENGRAMS Portal. These guidelines, in line with the Prime Minister’s directions to improve grievance redressal, detail the roles and responsibilities of Grievance Redressal Officers (GROs) and Nodal Public Grievance Officers. GROs must ensure grievances are addressed collaboratively and not closed without a clear resolution. For monetary grievances, details such as a Unique Transaction Reference (UTR) number should be included in the Action Taken Report (ATR), while non-monetary grievances must have relevant documents uploaded. Nodal officers are required to conduct monthly reviews and analyze grievance trends for timely resolution within 21 days, using interim replies when necessary. An appellate mechanism is in place, allowing applicants to appeal within 30 days of grievance closure, with the appeal being resolved in another 30 days. Additionally, any physical grievance submissions must be uploaded onto the CPENGRAMS Portal for tracking. These reforms aim to make the pension grievance redressal system more sensitive, accessible, and efficient.
F-No-14/12/2023-P&PW (CPEN)-9012
Government of India
Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions
Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare
3rd Floor, Lok Nayak Bhawan, Khan Market,
New Delhi, Dated the 16th October, 2024
OFFICE MEMORANDUM
Subject: Comprehensive guidelines for sensitive, accessible and meaningful redressal of Central Government Pensioners’ grievances on CPENGRAMS Portal – reg.
The undersigned is directed to refer to the Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare’s OMs dated 06.08.2021 and 23.08.2023 regarding the strengthening of the Pensioners’ grievance redressal mechanism and to say that in compliance of Cabinet Secretary’s DO No. 1/28/2/2024- Cab, dated 01.07.2024, conveying the directions of Hon’ble Prime Minister during his interaction with the Secretaries to the Government of India on 29th June, 2024 to make grievance redressal system more sensitive, accessible and meaningful, this Department has reviewed the process of the Centralized Pension Grievances Redress and Monitoring System (CPENGRAMS).
2. Accordingly, the guidelines have been revised on following issues, as under:
A. Role and Responsibilities of Grievance Redressal Officers (GROs):
(i) Grievance shall be redressed under ‘whole of the Government approach’. If the grievance does not pertain to the GRO to whom it has been forwarded, he shall immediately forward the same to the concerned GRO, if he knows the correct mapping. Otherwise, he shall return it back to the Nodal Public Grievance Officer of his Ministry/Department and the Nodal Officer shall forward the grievance to concerned GRO or to the DOPPW (in case, the grievance does not pertain to that Ministry/Department). In no case, grievance shall be closed summarily by stating, ‘it does not pertain to this Office ‘.
(ii) No grievance shall be closed without final outcome accruing to the applicant. As most of the pension grievances are monetary in nature, therefore, in the Action Taken Report (ATR) filed at the time of closure of grievance, Unique Transaction Reference (UTR) number or Reference number should be filled in on the portal. For grievances which are not monetary in nature, relevant order(s) or document(s) including PPO/letter/e-mail should be uploaded.
B. Role and Responsibilities of Nodal Public Grievance Officers:
(i) Every Nodal PG Officer shall undertake a monthly review of Pension related grievances pending on the portal to ensure the qualitative redressal of grievances within the prescribed time limit as mentioned in para 2C(ii) of this OM. The Nodal PG officer may access the poor/average feedback of the applicants by accessing CPGRAMS Portal (https://pgportal.gov.in/ccfeedback/) and take necessary corrective measures.
(ii) The Nodal PG Officer shall analyze the trend of grievances and conduct a root cause analysis. Accordingly, remedial measures related to people, policy and procedures to reduce the incidence of grievances may be taken.
C. Timeline for the redressal of the grievances:
(i) Over the period, the average redressal time of the pension related grievances has reduced substantially due to the reforms brought in the grievance redressal process including constant monitoring by DOPPW, on-line movement of the grievances to the concerned GROs and the capacity building of manpower deployed in pension grievance redressal process.
(ii) Therefore, Ministries/ Departments should strive to redress the pensioners’ grievances within 21 days with the employment of technological intervention and development of skill sets of the GROs. In the cases, where redressal of the grievance requires longer time, an interim reply may be furnished on the portal along with the reason for the same and the expected timeline for redressal of the grievance.
D. Appellate Mechanism:
(i) Upon the closure of the grievance, applicant is provided with the option to prefer an appeal against the redressal of his grievance within 30 days of closure of the grievance.
(ii) The Appellate Authority shall dispose of the appeal within 30 days of receipts of the appeal. A speaking order shall be passed, attaching relevant documents, if any.
E. Dealing with physical grievances:
The grievance applications filed in physical form with the Ministry/Department shall be uploaded on the CPENGRAMS portal to ensure proper monitoring of these grievances. For filing of grievances on the portal, the process as elaborated under the heading- ‘Help’ on the Home page of CPENGRAMS Portal ( https://pgportal.gov.in/pension/Help.aspx) may be referred.
3. This issues with the approval of the competent authority.
(Dr. Pramod Kumar)
Director
Tel: 011 24654734
To
1) All Secretaries to the Government of India,
2) Nodal Appellate authorities of all Ministries/Departments,
3) Nodal Public Grievance officers of all Ministries/Departments,
4) MC, DOPPW for uploading on Department’s website.
Copy for information to: –
I) Prime Minister’s Office (Kind Attention: Shri Amit Khare, Advisor to Hon’ble Prime Minister),
2) Cabinet Secretary,
3) Secretary to the President Secretariat,
4) Secretary General, Rajya Sabha Secretariat,
5) Secretary General, Lok Sabha Secretariat,
6) Secretary (Coordination & PG), Cabinet Secretariat
(Dr. Pramod Kumar)
Director
