The payment of ‘provisional pension’ will initially continue for a period of six months from the date of retirement and the period of ‘provisional pension’ may be further extended up to one year in exceptional cases.

Government employees retiring during Covid-19 pandemic will be receiving “provisional” pension till their regular Pension Payment Order (PPO) is issued and other official formalities are completed, the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions said on Monday.

MoS Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions, Jitendra Singh, said that after the Modi government took over, the Department of Pensions had upgraded and equipped itself to deliver the PPO to the concerned employee without delay on the day of his or her superannuation.

Besides this, in the last few years, taking cue from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s emphasis on digitalization, the Department of Pension also created a portal, which could be accessed by any government employee approaching superannuation to find out the status of his or her pension papers, he said.

However, because of the disruption in the official work due to Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown, Singh said, some of the employees who had retired during this period may not have been provided with PPO.

But, as an evidence of the present government’s sensitivity towards the pensioners and the senior citizens, a decision was taken that in order to avoid a delay in the start of regular pension covered under CCS (Pension Rules) 1972, the rules may be relaxed to enable seamless payment of “Provisional Pension” and “Provisional Gratuity” till the regular PPO is issued.

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