Vision or disillusion Chapter 3

 

``````````````````Vision or disillusion Chapter 3 

Vision Statement as defined in the SPARSH official website: “Correct pension to pensioners at right time.”

It intends to provide the following benefits.

1.       Correct pension payment to pensioner.

2.        Individual information dissemination to pensioners on portal and mobile devices.

3.       Reduction in number of grievances

4.       Single source of truth

5.       Correct accounting etc.

6.       As a single platform connecting all stakeholders.

The Basic as well as  overall aim of “Correct Pension to Pensioners at Right Time” has not been reached even for those migrated to SPARSH a few years ago. I would urge the readers to visit the Facebook  Group titled “ PCDA  SPARSH PENSION MUTUAL SELF HELP GROUP”.  You read the posts and gauge for yourselves how in the evening of their lives the pensioners  are spending sleepless nights and suffering for their very survival. This is only tip of the Iceberg. There are tens of thousands others in rural areas, mainly family pensioners whose survival and their  standing even within their own families depend on their monthly income by way of pension. I was moved to tears when one family pensioner living near my native village asked me whether she can apply for PM’S monthly dole for destitute under ATAL Pension Yojana! Is there no one to raise such anguish on the floor of the Parliament? 

No system in the entire world is asking the beneficiaries or the users  to take corrective action for the  in data capture and /or in processing logic.. Nor they are sending emissaries from Armed Forces HQ, Station HQ, Veerans Cell etc. to give promotional lectures  that all is well with SPARSH. These are more of a cover up operations for the glitches in SPARSH which will never be resolved.  If all is well with SPARSH why no one from PCDA or MOD are addressing these seminars, lectures etc.

 For every other pensioner under the sun , apart from Defence pensioners   there is Pension Adalat.How as a Defence Pensioner I can approach Pension Adalat with my grievance. Pension Adalat will not consider your request if you have not approached your own pension disbursal agency  i the first place before referring to it. 

Now, how do I lodge my grievance with  SPARSH?

You can raise a grievance f using any of the following modes:

1.Log into your SPARSH account.

2.Call the SPARSH Helpline.

3. Visit the nearest Service Center.

None of the above works as on date.  It is a "Catch 22"!   So “One pension One Adalat” is a pipe dream as far as  Defence pensioners!Will PMO or the MoD take a note of this? 

If you manage to get your grievance across to  SPARSH, it  is passing the  buck   back you   to resolve the issues and to approach various Armed Forces Installations running Service Centers , Record Offices, Sainik Welfare Centre’s etc.  Do the Serving soldiers   go to any Service Centre for problems related to getting their monthly pay? Why PCDA which is the authority holding the LPC cum Datasheets cannot go back and rectify their errors in data capture?   

The vision statement lists a number of benefits by switching over to SPARSH.

The Benefits:

Correct pension payment to pensioner.

Pension is based on LPC sent by CDA (O) and PAO(OR). PCDA P has no roll except to calculate the entitlement. This they have been doing even for past few hundred years when veterans of I and II WW were demobilized in thousands. The major grievance of pensioners in the last two decades is the notorious lethargy of staff in PCDA P Allahabad in correct data capture and updating of its records from input documents in receives from CDA (O0 and PAO(OR).  

 Individual information dissemination to pensioners on portal and mobile devices.

The only information that has been sent to pensioners is their User ID, Password and SPARSH PPO after informing them that their accounts have been migrated. How do you expect pensioners especially old family pensioners living in remote rural areas to have access to internet, understand the ten /12 page booklet to register their name if they are lucky if the portal is alive. Mostly it is down.

Reduction in number of grievances

For once the grievances have only multiplied a hundred times. In the earlier system the errors were sorted out by keeping a liaison team by every Regiment and major Armed Foorces institution to physically sort out the problems which wee basically mostly tardy data capture and updsate by PCDA P staff.  Now this facility is also off!

Single source of truth.

I can only laugh at this statement. Can anyone tell me how many sources were there earlier in the disbursal of pension? CPPO and Disbursing banks have personnel of their own staff to sort out pension related problems earlier. They have a matured system handling ten times the number of pensioners than defence pensioners.

Correct Accounting .

Was there incorrect accounting earlier. If so what is the past data of financial loss due to incorrect accounting and who was responsible for the same?

 As a single platform connecting all stakeholders.

Have a hearty laugh. It cannot connect to the most affected stake holder that is the migrated SPARSH Pensioner with any amount of certainty!  The log-in is a lottery. If you are lucky then the navigation is with so many glitches, you may not be able to even log in again. If you submit a grievance, you cannot log-in till such time the grievance is resolved!

 By the way who are the other stake holders, except PAO (OR) and CDA (o) Pune? These two are under the same CGDA under whom PCDA P also comes under!  I am unable to comprehend why these three working under the dame CGDA cannot have same data structure for seamless digital information exchange.     Because of the glitches in acceptance of Life Certificates and updating of Status, PCDA to request the Banks to do the same and also extended the time to 31 December.

I will be failing in my duty if I do not pen my recommendations for alternatives and  to make SPARSH responsive and  user friendly.  

My Recommendations 

·         Scrap SPARSH and revert to erstwhile system of pension disbursal.  This is impracticable as the beurocracy in MOD and CGDA will never accept it and Services HQ have no muscle to push this proposal.

·          Stop further migration of pensioners and family pensioners who are above 70 Years of age till such time all glitches are resolved.

·         For fresh retirees carry out a thorough vetting of input documents and correct keying in of data. Ensure data entry is by double strike so that any mistake in transcription and errors in transposition are captured before data is ported to  Database.

·         Impress on the developers to do away with the portion of their codes which is forcing exact matching of name in Aadhaar and name in PPO.  So long as PPO is linked to Aadhaar Number of the pensioner, there is no need for any of the attributes for eaxact match.

·         The same in case of address and PIN CODE .

I would like to emphasise the Attributes of an Entity in a Data base are amenable to change without affecting the integrity of the database. One can change his name due to religious reasons, numerology reasons. The basic supporting documents for change of Name is an affidavit notifying the Change duly attested by a Notary Public, publication of a notice in two News papers ( One English and another vernacular) saying that from so and so date he will be known by the same name.  . With copies of these one can get his name changed in Passport, Aadhaar, bank passbook, PAN and any other verifyable document like Driving License, Registration of movable and immovable assets. It is guaranteed under law. Can PCDA P withhold my pension if I Change my name tomorrow? If that be the case why they insist on editing name in Aadhaar? The software routine must ensure name or address change sent to PCDA with supporting documents is acknowledged and data amended in their database.   These days’ sex change operations are common place. Will a pensioner lose his pension from SPARSH if he undergoes one?

·         Last but not least, is the creation of 12 digit SPARSH PPO replacing the legacy PPO. It is a joke. It is touted as a great innovation that the first two or three digit will tell you whether he is from Army /Navy/Air Force, the next two or three tells whether he is Officer, JCO or OR , the next may indicate his rank and so on. Is it of any use to the pensioner as he knows who he is He need not have to decode the SPARSH PPO to know his own details!   Instead this of use to the Programmers for ease of programming and for  System administrators to segregate the data bases  to different data  centers for quick retrieval . It is impossible to type in a twelve digit PPO without making a mistake in the first attempt by senior citizens. It is next to impossible to key in through the keypad of a mobile phone in case IVR system! The legacy system needed the Pensioner to remember only the last four digits of PPO, the first alphabet indicating the status , the next four digits indicating the year he retired and the last for the serial number allotted . Yes, the software developer would have made a fortune in introducing this 12 digit number. Even if they had charged Rs100 for generation, key-in, validation of this number which is primarily for their own ease of use, for 25 lakh pensioners it works out  Twenty five hundred Lakhs   of Rupees.

 

 

·         Impress upon the third party developer to recommend up gradation of   Computer Servers to handle peak data and increase the speed of processing by the web site by optimizing the code.

 

My recommendations for other systems developed for Armed Forces especially ECHS and CSD.

ECHS: The database administrators of ECHS must immediately delete the biometric data of Primary beneficiaries and their eligible dependants. There is very high security risk to all linked databases like UIDAI, Banks which are linked to ECHS card if the ECHS database is hacked and biometric data gets copied. I need not and will not explain how  it can happen but if it happens it will be catastrophic.

Also there is no need to keep 64 kb, 128 kb of data in the chip embedded in the ECHS cards. It must have minimum data for authentication. I am yet to come across any Poly Clinic in the past twenty three years verifying the finger print of any ECHS Beneficiary using the finger print reader in case of doubt. Instead ECHS Cards of Primary beneficiary      linked “one to many” relationship with Aadhaar Numbers of all eligible beneficiaries. In case of doubt,   all Poly Clinics must be provided with hardware and software of UIDAI for finger print verification of Aadhaar Card of the person seeking ECHS facilities. They must take a cue from how Credit Card companies keep only bare minimum data in the chip / magnetic strip and all other data is securely held in their servers.

ECHS system developers made a fortune out of different capacity smart cards which were paid for by pensioners and dependants every few years!

 

ECHS System was developed before the advent of Aadhaar. The biometric data capture was proposed since it was felt that every pensionerwas out to cheat the system! In practice it is the staff employed in various polyclinics / some unscrupulous empanelled hospitals who have siphoned off Lakhs of rupees finding loopholes in the system. The latest is the case in Polyclinic in Chandigarh.  However I recommend that they can still retain/ issue ECHS Cards for the use by beneficiaries for production at empanelled hospitals / Diagnostic centers to cross verify the referral document issued by Poly Clinics. But there is a need to restrict the data in the chip to bare minimum.

 

CSD Cards: Unlike ECHS Cards, the CSD Cards can be totally dispended with for issue to pensioners and eligible dependants.  However they data can be kept in the server and liked to Aadhaar Numbers of pensioners and eligible dependants. It is enough for the URC operator to keyin Aadhar Number while billing and all data which is presently accessed through the present Smart cards can be accessed.   Here again the idea of all these were due to the wrong perception that the pensioner or his dependants will misuse the CSD facilty. While it is true that one might buy a Refrigerator through CSD to gift his Uncle or a bike to gift to his nephew who are not entitled for CSD items, more scams and corruptions have taken place in various URCs by the staff employed there.

Disclaimer :

  I am a great supporter of digitization and automation of data and processes having intimate association for the past more than four decades while in Service as well as a Veteran. I hasten to add that my write up is not to belittle the higher-ups in the Armed Forces, or the PCDA (O) or the government in power. I am a strong supporter of the poetical leadership which has given a lead in digitization of services including direct transfer of money to beneficiaries, UPI and other easy to operate system even by common men, the exemplary way starts ups are encouraged, the importance given to infrastructure development and combat readiness of defence forces in the past decade.

I am worried there are forces inimical to our progress and advancements which highlight in their publication and public speeches the glitches of SPARSH. By roping in highly senior ranked veterans to pen articles and publish them. Indirectly, it is a negative publicity against the present Government. These learned authors have not given any recommendations for alternatives or solution except indulging in blame game.  It is not my aim to also predict a dooms day! But timely intervention to avoid one in future is definitely warranted.  I wish  my Course mate in IMA, Honourable Gen VK Singh ( Veteran)   , Minister of State in the Central government ,  gets an opportunity to glance through my post through any social media and apprise the powers that be in the MOD  to glance through my posts.

Let the powers that be in the higher hierarchy of the Armed Forces not get carried away by a fancy Acronym and flashing power point presentation. They must involve the ground level officers who capture, update source data from various agencies in the development process of a computerized system. Let no system be accepted for implementation however reputed the third party developer is in national and international standing. 

I will try to send my paper to TOI but I am sure it will not be published. I request that the blog be viewed in Laptop, Tab or PC monitor for easier reading experience. I may  send this as Word Document by Email to some of my colleagues through Email. Comments can be penned after the end of the post and where feasible I will answer any queries but do not flood me with your personal complaints while dealing with SPARSH application !