New Delhi: The minimum pension has been increased to Rs 9,000 per person besides a two-fold hike in ex-gratia amount for central government employees, Union Minister Jitendra Singh said on Thursday.
Addressing the 29th meeting of the Standing Committee of Voluntary Agencies (SCOVA) in New Delhi, he said almost 88 per cent of pension accounts have been seeded to Aadhaar.
There are about 50-55 lakh pensioners in the country, said Singh, Minister of State in Prime Minister's Office.
He further said that minimum pension has been increased to Rs 9,000 per person and ex-gratia amount has been increased from Rs 10-15 lakh to Rs 25-35 lakh, as per a release issued by Personnel Ministry.
The SCOVA meeting is organised by the Department of Pensions and Pensioners' Welfare (DoP&PW).
Singh said there is a need to put in place an institutionalised mechanism to make good use of the knowledge, experience and efforts of the retired employees which can help in the value addition to the current scenario.
He said the retired employees are a healthy and productive workforce for India and we need to streamline and channelise their energies in a productive direction.
"We should learn from the pensioners' experience," said Singh.
The minister also said that the DoP&PW should be reoriented in such a way that pensioners become a part of nation building process.
Many issues related to pensioners were discussed threadbare, such as revision of Pension Payment Orders of Pre-2006 pensioners, health insurance scheme for pensioners including those residing in non-Central Government Health Service (CGHS) area and special higher family pension for widows of the war disabled invalidated out of service, etc.
The meeting was attended by the member of pensioners associations and senior officers of the important departments of the central government.
