Pension cards: Govt to computerise data of retired employees
The project aims at getting thousands of ‘ghost’ employees off govt payroll.
KARACHI:
The provincial services, general administration and coordination department has directed other departments to provide necessary information about their retired employees so that it could computerise it and then issue them biometric “smart” cards. These cards will be issued to former employees to draw their pension from an automated teller machine (ATM) of any bank in the country.
The move comes after Sindh Information Minister Sharjeel Inam Memon inaugurated the project last July and claimed that as many as 26,000 “ghost” employees were working in different government departments, and that the exchequer could save Rs6 billion by removing them.
Referring to government records, the Memon had said that 0.410 million employees were registered with the Sindh Government, of whom 0.328 million had computerised NICs and 73,800 were not registered with the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra). Salaries were being released to 338 employees who had passed away, Memon had claimed. Another 12,064 employees were drawing double salaries, while over 16,000 NICs had been identified bearing fake ages of their respective card holders. The computerisation of government employees’ data, Memon had said, would discourage the trend.
While providing information about the project, additional secretary of the services department said that information of nearly 0.5 million employees would be computerised in the first phase. Retired employees have been asked to submit details of their service book, pension book, bank accounts, postal address and immediate relatives. The services general administration and coordination department will then provide these details to Nadra, which will issue the smart cards.
The data will be computerised in three phases, from 1947 to 1968, 1969 to 1979 and 1980 to 2012. The process will initiate from Karachi, then cover Hyderabad, Sukkur, Mirpurkhas and Larkana. Officials said that pensioners would be required to pay Rs100 for the smart card.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 20th, 2012.
The provincial services, general administration and coordination department has directed other departments to provide necessary information about their retired employees so that it could computerise it and then issue them biometric “smart” cards. These cards will be issued to former employees to draw their pension from an automated teller machine (ATM) of any bank in the country.
The move comes after Sindh Information Minister Sharjeel Inam Memon inaugurated the project last July and claimed that as many as 26,000 “ghost” employees were working in different government departments, and that the exchequer could save Rs6 billion by removing them.
Referring to government records, the Memon had said that 0.410 million employees were registered with the Sindh Government, of whom 0.328 million had computerised NICs and 73,800 were not registered with the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra). Salaries were being released to 338 employees who had passed away, Memon had claimed. Another 12,064 employees were drawing double salaries, while over 16,000 NICs had been identified bearing fake ages of their respective card holders. The computerisation of government employees’ data, Memon had said, would discourage the trend.
While providing information about the project, additional secretary of the services department said that information of nearly 0.5 million employees would be computerised in the first phase. Retired employees have been asked to submit details of their service book, pension book, bank accounts, postal address and immediate relatives. The services general administration and coordination department will then provide these details to Nadra, which will issue the smart cards.
The data will be computerised in three phases, from 1947 to 1968, 1969 to 1979 and 1980 to 2012. The process will initiate from Karachi, then cover Hyderabad, Sukkur, Mirpurkhas and Larkana. Officials said that pensioners would be required to pay Rs100 for the smart card.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 20th, 2012.