On 21st September 2022, the Defence Accounts Department (DAD), under the Ministry of Defence (MoD) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Bank of Baroda (BoB) and HDFC Bank, to onboard themselves as Common Service Centres (CSC) under the System for Pension Administration – (RakSHa) (SPARSH) initiative, across more than 14000 branches across India.
- The MoU will onboard more than 7900 branches of BoB and 6300 branches of HDFC Bank as Service Centres to provide last mile connectivity to pensioners (especially in remote areas) through SPARSH.
Signatories – The MoU was signed by Controller of Defence Accounts (CDA)-Pensions Sham Dev and senior executives of Bank of Baroda and HDFC bank, in the presence of Defence Secretary Dr. Ajay Kumar, Financial Adviser (Defence Services) Rasika Chaube and Controller General of Defence Accounts (CGDA), Avinash Dikshit.
Key highlights:
i.The main objective of this partnership is to include 17 Lakh pensioners, out of 32 lakh defence pensioners on SPARSH by the end of September, 2022.
- The remaining pensioners will be added to SPARSH at the earliest.
ii.Until now, the total number of pensioners on SPARSH has crossed over 1 million with 11 lakh beneficiaries, which is about 33 per cent of the total defence pensioners in India.
Access:
i.The CSCs will act as an interface for SPARSH and provide a medium to perform functions including profile update requests, register grievances and seek redressal, digital annual identification, pensioner data verification or fetch detailed information regarding their monthly pension.
- Additionally, more than 4.5 lakh Village Level Entrepreneurs (VLEs) will assist the Defence Pensioners as a part of the CSC Network.
ii.The access to CSCs are provided free of cost to the pensioners and the nominal service charges will be borne by the DAD.
About SPARSH:
i.SPARSH is a web-based system that processes and credits pensions directly into the bank accounts of defence pensioners.
- This is administered by the DAD through the Principal Controller of Defence Accounts (Pensions), Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh (UP).
ii.The SPARSH online portal provides a transparent view of their pension account, from the date of commencement of pension to the date of cessation of pension due to the last eligible beneficiary.
- SPARSH caters to all the three defence services and its allied organisations.
About Defence Accounts Department (DAD):
DAD is the principal Accounting and Finance entity for the Defence Services that aims at providing responsive and professional Financial, Audit and Accounting services.
Controller General of Defence Accounts (CGDA) – Avinash Dikshit
Headquarters – New Delhi, Delhi
