Banks needs to issue acknowledgement Mandatoryly to pensioners on submission of life certificates: RBI

RBI/2014–15/587 DGBA.GAD No.H- 5013/45.01.001/2014–15

May 07, 2015

In terms of extant instruc­tions, all pen­sion­ers are required to fur­nish a life cer­tifi­cate to the pen­sion dis­burs­ing bank every year in Novem­ber for con­tin­u­ance of pen­sion. This cer­tifi­cate can be sub­mit­ted at any branch of the pen­sion pay­ing bank. The Gov­ern­ment of India has also launched from Sep­tem­ber, 2014 a scheme for intro­duc­tion of Aad­haar based dig­i­tal life cer­tifi­cates known as Jee­van Pra­maan, which was con­veyed to you vide our cir­cu­lar dat­ed Decem­ber 9, 2014.

2. Notwith­stand­ing the above, we have been receiv­ing com­plaints from central/state gov­ern­ment pensioners/ pen­sion­ers’ asso­ci­a­tions regard­ing pen­sion­ers being deprived of reg­u­lar pen­sion pay­ments due to mis­place­ment of life cer­tifi­cates at the branch­es con­cerned. In order to alle­vi­ate the hard­ships faced by pen­sion­ers on this account, all agency banks han­dling gov­ern­ment pen­sion pay­ments may, hence­forth, issue a duly signed acknowl­edge­ment to pen­sion­ers on receipt of the life cer­tifi­cate sub­mit­ted in phys­i­cal form. Banks may also con­sid­er enter­ing the same in their CBS imme­di­ate­ly on receipt and issu­ing a sys­tem gen­er­at­ed receipt to the pen­sion­ers. This would serve the twin pur­pose of acknowl­edge­ment to the pen­sion­ers as well as real-time upda­tion of records.

3. You may also pro­mote the use of dig­i­tal life cer­tifi­cates among pen­sion­ers, which would elim­i­nate the need for phys­i­cal pres­ence at branch­es and issue of acknowledgement.

Yours faith­ful­ly