The Author is Former Director General of Information Systems and A Special Forces Veteran, Indian Army

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh launched the mobile app for SPARSH (System for Pension Administration Raksha) on October 1, 2022. Describing SPARSH as a landmark step, he said it is the government’s endeavour to provide the best services to the serving personnel, ex-servicemen and their families during the soldiers’ lifetime as well as after death. However SPARSH has become the bane of ex-servicemen and veer naris, especially those who are not computer savvy and living in remote areas.

Defence Accounts should have worked out disbursement of pensions to 33 lakh pensioners plus 60,000-70,000 pensioners added every year plus workable flow chart to cater for various categories of pensioners for both veteran pensioners and veer naris since SPARSH is intended to replace the 32 CPPCs of banks disbursing pensions in the legacy system. There are horrific glitches in SPARSH because of faulty inputs given to the software developer - Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). The second major mistake by the authorities is to thrust the system on the Armed Forces without any trial.

The new Defence Secretary Giridhar Armane has acknowledged the problems in SPARSH and urged the PCDA on December 14, 2022 to make it more user friendly

The new Defence Secretary Giridhar Armane has acknowledged the problems in SPARSH and urged the PCDA on December 14, 2022 to make it more user friendly. But there are possibly scores and scores of veterans and veer naris whose pension is held up because of inadequacies in SPARSH. Pension is for old veterans and their families to live a smoother life and needs to be paid regularly without unwarranted hassles. Moreover when even officers cannot load their data in the desired manner in SPARSH, how can one expect aged veterans and illiterate veer naris living in remote areas to do so?

There are scores of veterans and veer naris whose pension is held up because of inadequacies in SPARSH

The requirement is a ‘System for Assured Pension Disbursement’ (SAPD) to pensioners. The acronym SPARSH may have been chosen for the nice sounding Hindi word but it has turned out to be that “administrators” have done their bit with little thought about how and when pension reaches the intended destination. Veteran Brigadier C.S. Vidyasagar running the voluntary organisation ‘Tri-Services Ex-servicemen Welfare Association’ (TSEWA) quotes a pathetic case as follows:

• Devika Sekar wife of Naik P. Sekar of Brigade of Guards is without pension since her husband passed away five months ago on July 14, 2022.
• She is unable to upload the death certificate on SPARSH and initiate a family pension claim to cater for the living needs of her two children and herself.
• In the legacy system, she would have got her family pension just by submitting the death certificate to the bank.
• Brigadier Vidyasagar lodged a CPENGRAMS complaint on December 8, 2022 to PCDA (Pensions) Prayagraj but the response is simply that the death certificate should be uploaded.
• The standard reply is “Go to CSC available in every village”. But the CSC fellows know nothing. Are they computer literate and capable to upload documents when Record Offices, banks and DPDO are unable to upload any document?

It would be grossly wrong to view the case of Devika Sekar an isolated one. Other discrepancies highlighted by Brigadier Vidyasagar are as under:

• The video being publicised for ease of operating SPARSH does not represent the real picture. SPARSH has been in service since April 2021 and the outcome is that not even one PPO is correct and not even one pension slip is correct.
• The proposal of soft copy of claim of pensioner to be uploaded on SPARSH by concerned Record Office is laudable but on ground Record Offices, Zilla Sainik Welfare Offices, Banks, DPDOs and pensioners are unable to upload any document.
• Why has communication between SPARSH and others become impossible?
• If documents cannot be uploaded since last one year and eight months you can imagine the condition of SPARSH(ED) pensioners.
• Bank transfer can be done in less than five seconds using ‘On Line Process’ but SPARSH is hardly true on line system. TCS is providing software and hardware support for five years at a cost of Rs 250 crores but two years have already passed and the goals have not been achieved.
• In the legacy system, a widow has to submit the husband’s death certificatein the bank and within 30 days the family pension is credited to her account by the bank - Circular 218 of PCDA (Pensions) Prayagraj.
• On logging in SPARSH with User ID and Password (if one has received these), the user is asked to authenticate a second line of checks. He is asked to enter name in Aadhaar. My name in Aadhaar is Brig. Chintamani Sivasankar Vidyasagar (37 characters) and it is compared with my name in PPO held by SPARSH which is C.S. Vidyasagar (13 characters). So I get a message ‘Demographic Validation Failure’ implying you cannot proceed further.
• If you do manage to get through to the ‘Grievance Through SPARSH portal’, the standard reply is we have understood your problem which will be sent to the concerned section. But your call is not transferred to speak directly to the concerned section officer.
• If at all there is one of the 4.50 lakh CSCs of the SPARSH Service Centres in a village, the personnel manning these have no idea of Defence Pensions. Presently, there is no connectivity between CSCs and SPARSH. But even if 10 per cent 4.50 lakhs CSCs upload any document, can the SPARSH server handle such heavy traffic?
• Income Tax has become a major problem with SPARSH. On migration to SPARSH, the AS 26 does not show the TDS deducted.
• Forget ‘On Line Grievance and Correction of Data’ when you cannot upload a simple death certificate onto SPARSH.

The government should seriously let the legacy system continue. This would eliminate excessive expenditure on SPARSH and avoid financial and mental harassment of veterans and veer naris

SPARSH was introduced to avoid paying yearly money to banks for disbursing pensions in the legacy system. But expenses on establishment of SPARSH Service Centres and the 4.5 lakh CSCs including pays of additional staff, cost of new premises, equipment and recurring expenses obviously id many times more than on the legacy system. This is not discussed at all – perhaps deliberately.

The government should seriously let the legacy system continue. This would eliminate excessive expenditure on SPARSH and avoid financial and mental harassment of veterans and veer naris. Also, the government should consider the Department of Ex-servicemen Welfare (DESW) to be headed by a veteran as also some posts in this department manned by veterans. If a veteran can be posted as the CDS, this should not pose any problem.