Kolkata: More than 1,500 serving employees, veterans, dependents and civil defense employees from Bengal and Sikkim attended a special sensitization seminar on SPARSH (Raksha Pension Administration System) – the new pension system for Army veterans – in Fort William on Thursday to discuss issues, entitlements, anomalies and seamless migration to the digital platform.
A team from the Comptroller General of Defense Accounts, Prayagraj, led the event at Fort William in Kolkata. About 275 were physically present; they had traveled from HowrahSouth 24 Parganas, Murshidabad, Hooghly, Nadia and North 24 Parganas’ Barrackpore, Kankinara and Kanchrapara. Participants from six other military stations – Sukna, Binnaguri, Darjeeling, Kalimpong, Bengdubi and Gangtok – joined the seminar via video conference.
The program comes after SPARSH crashed last month, leaving veterans stranded. Launched last year and aiming to save Rs 250 crore per year, the online system processes pension applications and credits the amount directly to bank accounts without resorting to any external intermediary.