System for Pension Administration Raksha (SPARSH) 

Why in News?

• The Ministry of Defense has recently urged the stakeholders of System for Pension Administration Raksha (SPARSH) to make it more user friendly.

Highlights

• It is an integrated system for automation of sanction and disbursement of defence pension.
• This web-based system processes pension claims and credits pension directly into the bank accounts of defence pensioners without relying on any external intermediary.
• A Pensioner Portal Is available for pensioners to view their pension related information, access services and register complaints, if any.
• SPARSH envisages the establishment of Service Centres to provide last-mile connectivity to pensioners who may be unable to directly access the SPARSH portal.
• SPARSH has been designed keeping defence pensioners at the centre, who will be given a completely transparent view of their pension account, through an online portal.
• It aims address the current challenges in the pension sanctioning and disbursement process such as
• Decentralised solution existing in silos
• Manual intervention in processing
• Lack of Centralised information for addressing pensioner queries etc.
• It provides the option to the pensioner to use enabled services for quicker processing of his requests and signing of declarations, making his experience a truly paperless and hassle free one.
• It captures and maintains a complete history of events and entitlements of the pensioner – right from the date of commencement of pension to the date of cessation of pension due to the last eligible beneficiary.