On Wednesday, Union Minister Jitendra Singh said the Department of Pensions and Pensioners Welfare would soon launch an AI-enabled public portal to benefit pensioners. Interacting with beneficiaries of the pension payment and tracking portal ‘Bhavishya’ here, he said that in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi‘s motto is to ensure “ease of leaving”, the AI-driven portal will automatically send alerts to pensioners.

Minister of State for Personnel said the proposed portal would keep in touch with pensioners and their associations across the country and regularly receive their comments, suggestions and grievances for a timely response.

A statement issued by the Ministry of Personnel said that most retired senior citizens, including retired paramilitaries and those who are about to receive pensions, praised the fast processing of assistance through the “Bhavishya” platform and thanked the minister for the seamless service.

Some of the banking issues have come to the minister’s attention, which will be handled automatically in an AI-enabled portal with fixed responsibilities.

Singh said “Bhavishya” ensured that the end-to-end digitisation of pension processing and payments was in line with the Modi government’s objectives of transparency, digitisation and service delivery. He also recommended that officials hold regular pre-retirement workshops to provide them with advice and learning experiences.

The Minister reiterated that pension reform is not only a governance reform but has an enormously positive social impact. Department of Pensions and Pensioners Welfare Secretary V Srinivas said the Pension Payment Order (PPO) in the dig locker eliminated the delay in forwarding it to new pensioners and the need to hand over a physical copy.

Considering the large number of retirees from the Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) serving in remote areas of the country, the software is a boon in terms of ease of handling, speed and accuracy. Each stakeholder has a deadline to complete partial pension processing, with constant alerts on pensioners’ mobile phones emphasising the electronic processing of pension cases, the statement said.

It said that, as in the past, this eliminates the need for retirees to continue to consult files in the months leading up to retirement. The statement added that because the software uses the latest superannuation rules, superannuation calculations are accurate and in line with the rules and not based on interpretation by the staff involved.