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The Department of Pension and Pensioners' Welfare (DoPPW), under the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, will hold the 9th National Anubhav Awards Ceremony and the 60th Pre-Retirement Counselling (PRC) Workshop on 17 August 2026 at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi, under the auspices of Dr. Jitendra Singh, Minister of State for the Ministry.
Fifteen awardees have been selected under the National Anubhav Awards Scheme, 2026 for contributions to projects including the Passport Seva Kendra, the repeal of obsolete rules and framing of new ones, technological adaptation in administration and accounting, and energy conservation.
The event will also see the release of the Handbook on Pension Mitra and the Guidelines for the nation-wide Digital Life Certificate (DLC) Campaign 5, alongside a Bank Exhibition in which 17 Pension Disbursing Banks will display products and services for retiring employees.
Capture the institutional memory of retiring government servants by having them write up notable work done during service, so that good practice is documented rather than lost at superannuation.
Key: Open to retiring/retired employees of the Central Government, 12 Public Sector Banks and Central Public Sector Enterprises. The best write-ups receive National Anubhav Awards; from 2023 Jury Certificates are also conferred to widen participation. The 2026 edition is the 9th awards ceremony.
Replace the annual physical appearance of a pensioner before the disbursing bank with a biometrically authenticated digital life certificate that can be generated from home, a bank branch, a Common Service Centre or a post office.
Key: Face Authentication technology was added in 2021, letting a pensioner submit the certificate from a smartphone without a fingerprint or iris device. DoPPW runs a saturation-style nationwide DLC Campaign each year; Campaign 5's guidelines are the ones being released at this event.
End-to-end digitisation of pension processing, from the retiring employee filing papers online to the electronic issue of the Pension Payment Order (PPO) into DigiLocker.
Key: Made mandatory for all Central Government ministries and departments with effect from 1 January 2017. It keeps the retiring employee informed of the sanction stage by SMS and e-mail, which removes the opacity that used to cause delays.
Give central government pensioners a single online route to lodge and track pension-related grievances, with monitoring of redress by the department concerned.
Key: It is the pension-specific arm of the government's grievance architecture and is hosted alongside the central CPGRAMS portal.
Collapse the many separate pension portals into one window so that a pensioner does not have to know which system holds which service.
Key: Built on Bhavishya, it brings together CPENGRAMS, Anubhav, Anudaan, Sankalp and the Pension Dashboard, and integrates the pension portals of pension disbursing banks including SBI, Bank of Baroda, Punjab National Bank and Canara Bank. A pensioner can view monthly pension slips, life-certificate status, Form 16 and arrear statements in one place.
Pair each retiring employee with a designated Welfare Officer who helps complete pension documentation and formalities, and later guides dependants when a family pension claim arises.
Key: It is a hand-holding mechanism rather than a portal — the Handbook being released on 17 August 2026 sets out how the role is to work. It sits alongside the network of Pensioners' Welfare Associations that DoPPW uses as its field arm for outreach and DLC campaigns.
Nodal department for policy on pension and pensioners' welfare for central civil servants; runs Anubhav, Bhavishya, CPENGRAMS, the Integrated Pensioners' Portal and the annual Digital Life Certificate campaigns, and frames the Central Civil Services (Pension) Rules.
Parent ministry of DoPPW, and also of the Department of Personnel and Training and the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances. It is one of the ministries held directly by the Prime Minister, with a Minister of State in charge of day-to-day work — a standing exam point.
Statutory regulator of the National Pension System and the Unified Pension Scheme option within it. Note the division of labour that exams test: DoPPW handles the old defined-benefit civil pension and pensioner welfare, while PFRDA regulates the contributory system.
Notified on 20 December 2021 by DoPPW, replacing the Central Civil Services (Pension) Rules, 1972. They govern pension entitlements of government servants appointed on or before 31 December 2003 who are borne on pensionable establishments — that is, the pre-NPS cohort.
Notified in March 2021, these codify how the contributory National Pension System applies to central government servants who joined on or after 1 January 2004.
Approved by the Union Cabinet in August 2024 and notified with effect from 1 April 2025, it offers central government employees an assured payout option within the NPS framework, regulated by PFRDA.
| Aspect | Old Pension (CCS Pension Rules) | National Pension System | Unified Pension Scheme |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who is covered | Appointed on or before 31 December 2003 | Appointed on or after 1 January 2004 | An option available to central government employees within NPS, from 1 April 2025 |
| Nature | Defined benefit, paid from the Consolidated Fund | Defined contribution, market-linked corpus | Contributory but with an assured payout |
| Payout basis | Governed by CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021, which replaced the 1972 Rules | Depends on accumulated corpus and annuity purchased | 50% of the average basic pay of the last 12 months before superannuation |
| Minimum service for full benefit | Rules-based, service-linked | Not applicable — corpus-based | 25 years of qualifying service for the full assured payout |
| Floor amount | Not framed as a floor of this kind | No guaranteed floor | Minimum ₹10,000 per month on superannuation after 10 years or more of qualifying service |
| Regulator / nodal body | DoPPW | PFRDA | PFRDA (notified 2025) |
Jeevan Pramaan, the Aadhaar-based Digital Life Certificate service for pensioners, is launched.
DoPPW launches the Anubhav platform for retiring employees to record their service experience.
Bhavishya, the online pension sanction and payment tracking system, becomes mandatory for all central government departments.
Face Authentication technology is introduced for submitting the Digital Life Certificate.
The Central Civil Services (Pension) Rules, 2021 are notified, replacing the 1972 Rules.
The first nationwide Digital Life Certificate campaign is run in 37 cities.
The DLC campaign is extended to 100 locations; Jury Certificates are added to the Anubhav Awards.
The Unified Pension Scheme, notified on 24 January 2025, takes effect as an option for central government employees.
DLC Campaign 4.0 runs across more than 2,000 districts, sub-divisions and cities, launched on 5 November 2025.
9th National Anubhav Awards and 60th PRC Workshop at Vigyan Bhawan; Handbook on Pension Mitra and DLC Campaign 5 guidelines released.
GS Paper 2 > Governance > Government Policies and Interventions; Role of Civil Services
General Awareness > Government Schemes and Portals
General Awareness > Government Schemes; Pension Disbursing Banks and Digital Payments
Pension portals and the NPS/UPS distinction recur every year in SSC, Railway and Banking general awareness; UPSC touches them through governance and administrative reform.
DoPPW platform launched in March 2015 on which retiring and retired employees of the Central Government, 12 Public Sector Banks and CPSEs record their work experience; the best entries receive the National Anubhav Awards.
Aadhaar-authenticated electronic proof that a pensioner is alive, launched on 10 November 2014, with face authentication added in 2021, replacing the annual physical appearance before the disbursing agency.
Pension Sanction and Payment Tracking System of DoPPW, mandatory for all central government departments from 1 January 2017; now the base of the Integrated Pensioners' Portal.
Centralised Pension Grievances Redress and Monitoring System — the online grievance channel for central government pensioners.
A designated Welfare Officer paired with each retiring employee to complete pension formalities and to assist dependants with family pension claims.
DoPPW workshop briefing employees about to retire on the procedures required for timely payment of retirement benefits; the 60th edition was held on 17 August 2026.