Pensioners under the retirement fund body Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) will be able to take pension from any bank this month onwards and there will be no need for pensioners to visit the bank for any verification at the time of commencement of pension, the Ministry of Labour and Employment said on Friday.
After two pilot phases last year, the Ministry has now fully rolled out the Centralised Pension Payments System (CPPS) from January 1 across all 122 regional offices of the EPFO — a move that is expected to benefit more than 78 lakh Employees’ Pension Scheme (EPS) pensioners of EPFO.
Union Labour and Employment Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said this initiative empowers pensioners to access their pension seamlessly from any bank, any branch, anywhere in the country. “It eliminates the need for physical verification visits and simplifies the pension disbursement process. CPPS is a testament to our commitment to modernising EPFO services and ensuring convenience, transparency, and efficiency for our pensioners. With this rollout, we are setting a new benchmark in pension service delivery, aligning with the vision of a tech-enabled and member-centric EPFO,” he said.
About Rs 1,570 crore pension has been disbursed to over 68 lakh EPS pensioners for December 2024, the Ministry said.
The first pilot of the Centralised Pension Payments System was completed in October 2024 in regional offices of Karnal, Jammu and Srinagar with the pension disbursement of about `11 crore to more than 49,000 EPS Pensioners. The second pilot was done in November 2024 in 24 regional offices in which around `213 crore pension was disbursed to over 9.3 lakh pensioners.
Under the existing system, the pension disbursement is decentralised, with each zonal/ regional office of EPFO maintaining separate agreements with only 3-4 banks. In the CPPS, the pensioner will be able to take pension from any bank and there will be no need for them to visit the bank for any verification at the time of commencement of pension and the pension shall be immediately credited upon release.
Under the CPPS, which has come into effect from this month, there will be 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, the Ministry said.
“This would be a great relief to pensioners who move to their hometown after retirement. EPFO is continuously working towards improving services for EPS pensioners and the new CPPS system is a major reform in this direction,” it said.
This facility has been launched as part of EPFO’s ongoing IT modernisation project Centralised IT Enabled System (CITES 2.01) from January 1, 2025. In the next phase, CPPS will enable a transition to Aadhaar-based payment system (ABPS).
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