Rule 54 of LIC (Employees)Pension Rules 1995. -Need for amendment

From: Colinjivadi Mahadevan <chmahadevan@gmail.com>
Date: Thursday, January 16, 2020
Subject: Fwd: Rule 54 of LIC (Employees)Pension Rules 1995. -Need for amendment
To: lkumar@nic.in


To 

Shri Lalit Kumar Chandel,

Economic Adviser,

Department of Financial Services,

Ministry of Finance,

New Delhi

Dear Sir,

                                   Re: Amendment needed to Rule 54 of LIC(Employees) Pension Rules 1995

Kindly find forwarded a mail sent by me to the Executive Director(Personnel),LIC of India,Central Office on the above subject.

The Rule 54 of the cited Rules provide as follows:

" Manner of payment of pension -A pension fixed at a monthly rate shall be payable monthly on or after the first day of the following month."

It has been the experience of the LIC pensioners across the country,that many a month,the monthly pension is not credited on the 1st of the following month.Whenever it is a Sunday or holiday,the pensioner has to wait for pension credit to his/her account beyond the 1st of the month.It has been recently directed by the Reserve Bank of India that NEFT transactions should be put through irrespective of whether it is a holiday or not.

The above  open-ended Rule which is existing in the notified LIC Pension Rules continues for more than 24 years providing a lee-way to LIC to delay pension credit to pensioners' bank accounts beyond the first of the month.The words 'or after' appearing in the above Rules rob the Pension Rules of the accountability of LIC to pay pension on the due date.Delay in credit of pension beyond 1st causes undue hardship for pensioners.

I have therefore suggested to LIC to initiate amendment of the above Rule by deleting the words 'or after' so that LIC can adhere to the mandatory due date of 1st of the following month for payment of pension.

As the necessary power to amend the Pension Rules 1995 are vested in the Central Government by virtue of Section 48 of LIC Act 1956,I humbly request you to take immediate necessary steps to amend the Pension Rules as suggested above and help more than 50000 pensioners of LIC.

Thanking you,

C H Mahadevan 

Executive Director (LIC)(Retd),

Chennai