New Delhi, Jun 14 (PTI) The Delhi government has directed all its departmental heads to dispose of cases of service matters, including pension, by July 31, officials said on Wednesday.

A special drive will be held from June 15 to July 15 to address grievances of the former Delhi government employees concerning their pending pension matters, they said.

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Delhi's chief secretary had last week reviewed the status of court cases relating to service matters, including pension cases, pending in various departments.

As per official documents, there were 2,130 such pending court cases and the among departments with highest numbers of such cases were Delhi Transport Corporation, 1170, Education, 557, Health and Family Welfare, 175 and Services 73.

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The delay in disposal of pension cases causes not only mental harassment and agony to retired government servants but compel them to face financial hardship even after having rendered a long service to the Delhi government, officials said citing the documents.

The Delhi chief secretary is of the view that such a sizeable pendency of pension cases is "highly undesirable and against the service ethos", officials said.

"The Chief Secretary has desired that all the pending pension cases shall be decided by the concerned administrative departments in time bound manner by 31 July 2022 positively," a document said.

An analysis of grievances related to pending pension matters received at the office of the chief secretary noted administrative delays and non-observance of defined procedures for processing pension proposals as among the reasons for pending cases.

Delay in issuance of retirement orders, delayed submission of pension papers to the Principal Accounts Offices concerned, delay in obtaining vigilance clearance for retirement purposes, especially in respect of gazetted officers, incomplete forms, lapses like missing signatures, thumb impression and attestation among others are the other reasons for the lag in deciding pending pension matters, it stated.

The departments have been asked to set up teams for the drive starting June 15.

Also, they will prepare a list of pending pension cases and the status of such cases will be updated every fortnight. All these will be submitted to the Pension Cell of the Delhi government's Principal Accounts Office.

The Pension Cell will furnish a report to the Services Department in the first week of every month giving details of the pending pension cases with Pay and Account Offices and departments also giving reasons for the pendency, the documents said.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)