Pensioners can withdraw EPFO pension from any bank branch: Ministry of Labour

About Rs 1,570 crore pension has been disbursed to over 68 lakh EPS pensioners for December 2024, the Ministry said.

The first pilot of the Centralised Pension Payments System was completed in October 2024 in regional offices of Karnal, Jammu and Srinagar with the pension disbursement of about `11 crore to more than 49,000 EPS Pensioners. The second pilot was done in November 2024 in 24 regional offices in which around `213 crore pension was disbursed to over 9.3 lakh pensioners.

Under the existing system, the pension disbursement is decentralised, with each zonal/ regional office of EPFO maintaining separate agreements with only 3-4 banks. In the CPPS, the pensioner will be able to take pension from any bank and there will be no need for them to visit the bank for any verification at the time of commencement of pension and the pension shall be immediately credited upon release.

Under the CPPS, which has come into effect from this month, there will be disbursement of pension throughout India without any need for transfer of pension payment orders (PPO) from one office to another even when the pensioner moves from one location to another or changes his bank or branch, the Ministry said.

“This would be a great relief to pensioners who move to their hometown after retirement. EPFO is continuously working towards improving services for EPS pensioners and the new CPPS system is a major reform in this direction,” it said.

This facility has been launched as part of EPFO’s ongoing IT modernisation project Centralised IT Enabled System (CITES 2.01) from January 1, 2025. In the next phase, CPPS will enable a transition to Aadhaar-based payment system (ABPS).