{"id":4250,"date":"2022-09-23T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-09-23T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/current_affairs\/uncategorized\/23-09-2022\/sparsh-initiative\/"},"modified":"2022-09-23T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2022-09-23T00:00:00","slug":"sparsh-initiative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/current-affairs\/23-09-2022\/sparsh-initiative","title":{"rendered":"Sparsh Initiative"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size:13pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong><u>In News\u00a0<\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">The <\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>Defence Accounts Department<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"> signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Bank of Baroda and HDFC Bank, to onboard them as Service Centres under the <\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>System for Pension Administration (Raksha) (SPARSH) initiative<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">, across more than 14,000 branches throughout India.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:13pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong><u>About SPARSH\u00a0<\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">It is a <\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>web-based system for processing<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"> the pension claims and crediting the pension directly into the bank accounts of defence pensioners without any external intermediary.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">It has been designed to give <\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>Defence Pensioners a transparent view of their pension account<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">, through an online portal which captures and maintains a complete history of events and entitlements of the pensioner \u2013 right from the date of commencement of pension to the date of cessation of pension due to the last eligible beneficiary.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">This system is administered by the<\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong> Defence Accounts Department through the Principal Controller of Defence Accounts (Pensions)<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">, Prayagraj and caters to all the three Services and allied organisations.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">\u00a0The system on roll-out is initially catering to the new retirees and subsequently is being extended to cover the existing defence pensioners<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>Achievements: <\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">Providing impetus to <\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>Digital India initiative<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">, SPARSH has grown exponentially with more than Rs 11,600 Crores disbursed in the Financial Year 2021-22, from just about Rs 57 crores in FY 2020-21.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:circle\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">The total number of pensioners onboard SPARSH has crossed over one million mark with 11 lakh beneficiaries, which is about 33% of the total defence pensioners in India.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>Source:<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.livemint.com\/news\/india\/govt-signs-mou-with-bank-of-baroda-hdfc-bank-to-expand-reach-of-sparsh-initiative-11663761696547.html\" style=\"text-decoration:none\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#1155cc\"><strong><u>LM<\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In News\u00a0 The Defence Accounts Department signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Bank of Baroda and HDFC Bank, to onboard them as Service Centres under the System for Pension Administration (Raksha) (SPARSH) initiative, across more than 14,000 branches throughout India. About SPARSH\u00a0 It is a web-based system for processing the pension claims and crediting [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4251,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[31,30],"class_list":["post-4250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs","tag-government-policies-interventions","tag-gs-2"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/wp-images.nextias.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/format=auto\/ca\/uploads\/2023\/07\/718003Screenshot_6.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4250\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}