Pensioners to benefit from ICTA’s e-Pensions project

Gratuity on date of retirement; first pension pay within month

The ‘e-Pensions’ project, a brainchild of President Mahinda Rajapaksa aimed at benefiting all pensioners in the country, will be launched early next week.

The ICT Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA), which functions under the Presidential Secretariat, and the Department of Pensions of the Ministry of Public Administration and Home Affairs have jointly put the project in place.

ICTA Chairman Professor P.W. Epasinghe said that under this project the whole procedure – from computation to the payment of pension – would be subjected to a positive change, benefiting the pensioner.

“The e-Pensions project fulfils yet another of the pledges envisaged in the ‘Mahinda Chinthana – Vision for the Future’ policy statement for fulfilling the Government’s responsibility towards senior citizens and securing them an honourable place,” the ICTA Chairman said.

Commenting on the ease in administration that this project would bring about, Pensions Department Director General K. A. Tillakaratne said that once this e-Pensions project was implemented, the bulky file currently containing a large number of paper documents would be reduced to a thin one with a few basic paper documents.

“As a result of the e-Pensions project it will be possible for the pensioners to draw their pension as early as during the first month after they reach the date of retirement and their gratuity on the day of retirement,” the Pensions Chief explained.

Deputy Director of Pensions Pradeep Imal Gunawardena said that another facility that would be available to the pensioner under the e-Pensions project was the facility to know particulars, including one’s pension number issued by the Pensions Department, via SMS.

At present, pensioners are able to obtain particulars about their pensions from 2008 onwards by entering the pension number at www.pensions.gov.lk.

While the total number of pensioners islandwide drawing their monthly pension currently numbers almost 500,000, the number of those who receive pension benefits under the Pension Scheme for widows/widowers and orphans is about one million.  Elaborating on the modus operandi of the e-Pensions project, ICTA COO Reshan Dewapura said that the central database of the Pensions Department would be kept updated with inputs from the Population Registry and that the Divisional Secretariats would be provided with up-to-date information from the central database.  

“The data exchange between the Department of Pensions and the Divisional Secretariats will be accomplished by using data communication lines, resulting in up-to-date information at both ends,” he added.

Speaking on the preparation of the staff to handle the change, Head of ICTA’s Government Re-engineering Programme Wasantha Deshapriya said that the staffers of the Pensions Department and the Divisional Secretariats had already been transformed into a skilled workforce, efficient at using the new pension system.  

“This will create an IT culture in the Pensions Department and Divisional Secretariats where advanced IT skills and ICT based-management systems are used routinely,” Deshapriya said.

Referring to the timeframe of the implementation of the project, the ICTA e-Pensions Project Manager Thusha Mukunthan said that as per the plans, this project would be developed and rolled out at the Department of Pensions Colombo and the Moratuwa and Hanwella Divisional Secretariats as a pilot project a year from now.

“This pilot project phase will also include the Western Province Agrarian Services Department, Sri Lanka Prisons Department and the Civil Defence Department. Once this phase one pilot project is completed successfully, it will be phased out islandwide,” she added.

The two institutions, ICTA and Pensions Department, signed the relevant contract for the implementation phase of the project with E-W Information Systems Ltd., 3i Infotec Pvt. Ltd. and hSenid Software International (Pvt) Ltd.

The project will be launched under the patronage of Public Administration and Home Affairs Minister W. D. J. Seneviratne at the Department of Public Administration on 27 October.