Comprehensive guidelines for sensitive, accessible, and meaningful redressal of Central Government Pensioners’ grievances on CPENGRAMS Portal - reg.
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
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 with 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 systems 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 the following issues, as under:
A. Role and Responsibilities of Grievance Redressal Officers (GROs):
(i) Grievance shall be redressed under the '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 the concerned GRO or to the DOPPW (in case the grievance does not pertain to that Ministry/Department). In no case shall the grievance be closed summarily by stating, ‘it does not pertain to this Office.’
(ii) No grievance shall be closed without a 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 the grievance, the Unique Transaction Reference (UTR) number or Reference number should be filled in on the portal. For grievances that 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 the 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.
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, online movement of the grievances to the concerned GROs, and the capacity building of manpower deployed in the 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 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, the applicant is provided with the option to prefer an appeal against the redressal of his grievance within 30 days of the closure of the grievance.
(ii) The Appellate Authority shall dispose of the appeal within 30 days of receipt 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 homepage of the CPENGRAMS Portal (https://pgportal.gov.in/pension/Help.aspx) may be referred to.
3. This issue is with the approval of the competent authority.
Signed by:
Dr. Pramod Kumar
Director
Tel: 011 24654734
To:
- All Secretaries to the Government of India,
- Nodal Appellate authorities of all Ministries/Departments,
- Nodal Public Grievance officers of all Ministries/Departments,
- NIC, DOPPW for uploading on Department's website.
Copy for information to:
- Prime Minister’s Office (Kind Attention: Shri Amit Khare, Advisor to Hon'ble Prime Minister),
- Cabinet Secretary,
- Secretary to the President Secretariat,
- Secretary General, Rajya Sabha Secretariat,
- Secretary General, Lok Sabha Secretariat,
- Secretary (Coordination & PG), Cabinet Secretariat
Signed by:
Dr. Pramod Kumar
Director
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