78 lakh EPS pensioners to benefit as new payment system clears pilot run

New Delhi: Union Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Mansukh Mandaviya, on Friday announced the successful completion of pilot run of the new Centralised Pension Payments System (CPPS) under the Employees’ Pension Scheme 1995 aimed at enhancing pension services.

He said that the pilot run was completed on October 29-30 with the pension disbursement of about Rs 11 crore for October to more than 49,000 EPS pensioners of Jammu, Srinagar and Karnal regions.

The new system enables pensioners to receive their pension from any bank, any branch, anywhere in the country. This addresses the long-standing challenges faced by pensioners and ensures a seamless and efficient disbursement mechanism, the minister said.

The new CPPS system will be fully rolled out as part of EPFO’s ongoing IT modernization project Centralised IT Enabled System (CITES 2.01) by January 2025 and will benefit more than 78 lakh EPS pensioners of EPFO.

Earlier, during the announcement of the new CPPS system, Mandaviya had said, “The approval of the Centralised Pension Payment System (CPPS) marks a significant milestone in modernization of the EPFO. This is a crucial step in our ongoing efforts to transform the EPFO into a more robust, responsive, and tech-enabled organization, committed to serving the needs of its members and pensioners better.”

The CPPS is a paradigm shift from the existing pension disbursement system that is decentralised, with each Zonal/Regional Office of EPFO maintaining separate agreements with only 3-4 banks. In the new CPPS, there will also be no need for pensioners to visit the bank for any verification at the time of commencement of pension and the pension will be immediately credited upon release.

The CPPS system would also ensure disbursement of pension throughout India without any need for transfer of Pension Payment Orders (PPO) from one office to another even when the pensioner moves from one location to another or changes his bank or branch. This would be a great relief to pensioners who move to their hometown after retirement.