BHAVISHYA – Promoting Digital Empowerment and Ease of Living for Pensioners

To overcome the problems of delay & clerical errors in processing the pension cases, as well as financial loss and harassment to the pensioners, the DOPPW introduced, a unique innovative centralized pension processing software called ‘Bhavishya’ for all central government Ministries/Departments.

“Bhavishya” was made mandatory for all central civil Ministries and Departments w.e.f 01.01.2017. At present, 99 Ministries/ Departments, 1020 Offices and 8320 DDOs are on Board and 2,50,845 PPOs have been issued till 14.08.2024. This software brought all the stakeholders who were till date decentralized on a single platform. The system laid down a common methodology incorporating all the rules and regulations of CCS Pension Rules, 2021.

Bhavishya has been ranked 3^rd best in NeSDA (National e-Governance Service Delivery Assessment), 2021.

Following are the Best practices of Bhavishya:

1. Auto Registration of Retirees: the ‘Bhavishya’ software was integrated with payroll package and would auto fill of basic data of the retiring employees and provide the necessary MIS to the various departments as well as to the DOPPW the number of employees due to retire in the next 15 months.
2. Self Registration of all the stakeholders i.e. DDO/HOO/PAO etc.
3. Self-filling of pension form(s) by retiree.
4. Strict timelines:The software has laid down strict timelines for various stages of pension processing across all stakeholders involved. The process starts online 15 months prior to retirement and the pensioner has to fill up a single form once. The system on its own keeps throwing up alerts to the pensioner as well as to the stakeholder for meeting out the deadlines prescribed for various stages.
5. Transparency and Accountability:There is complete transparency and accountability in processing of a pension case and due to this system, it becomes very easy to identify the delay points if any, and fix responsibility.
6. Automatic Calculation of all the Retirement Benefits:The automatic pension calculation cutting across all Ministries/Departments is accurate since it removes manual intervention and reduce the grievances.
7. Real time updates via email/SMS alerts:The system is capable of giving real time updates via email/SMS alerts for every action due and performed relating to pension processing of central civil retirees up to the stage of first credit of pension in their respective bank’s accounts.
8. e-PPO: The ‘Bhavishya’ has also been integrated with the PFMS module of CGA and due to this it has now become possible to issue electronic PPOs (e-PPO). The e-PPO is transmitted by the concerned Ministry/Department’s PAO to CPAO from where it goes to the Bank. The paying branch can view e-PPO online.
9. End to End digitization: e-PPO makes the entire pension application, procession and payments process paperlessby transferring and accepting data in encrypted form.
10. Digilocker: Bhavishya automatically push the ePPO in the Digilocker account of the retiree to access it anywhere/anytime without logging into Bhavishya.
11. Issue of Pensioners Identity card through Bhavishya
12. Integration with Banks: Bhavishya has been integrated with pension portals of various banks, to provide post-retirement services like Form-16, Pension Slip, status of Life Certificate, due-drawn statement of arrears etc.

As a result of implementation of Bhavishya, 83% Superannuation PPOs are issued either before retirement or within 30 days.