Pension Administration Defense System (SPARSH)
- Recently, the Ministry of Defense has urged the stakeholders of the Pension Administration Raksha System – Sparsh (SPARSH), to make it more user-friendly.
- The One Rank One Pension (OROP) scheme also provides for payment of equal pension to military officers of equal rank for equal length of service (irrespective of the date of retirement).
SPARSH Scheme
- It is an integrated system for automation of sanction and disbursement of Defense Pension.
- This web-based system processes pension claims and credits pension directly to the bank accounts of defense pensioners without relying on any external intermediary.
- A pensioner’s portal is available for pensioners to view their pension information, access services and lodge complaints (if any).
Objective:
- Sparsh envisages setting up of Seva Kendras to provide last point connectivity to pensioners who may be unable to access the Sparsh portal directly.
- Sparsh has been designed keeping Defense Pensioners at the center, who will be provided with completely transparent information about their pension account through an online portal.
- It aims to address the current challenges in the pension sanction and disbursement process such as-
- Decentralized solutions in silos.
- Manual intervention in processing.
- Lack of centralized information for resolution of pensioners’ queries etc.
Source – PIB
