Background: 

This circular explains the implementation of the Centralised Pension Payment System (CPPS) by the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO). The aim is to centralise and simplify pension disbursement across India.  

• Centralised System: Pension payments will no longer be tied to specific regional offices or banks. Any regional office can process pension claims for any bank account, anywhere in the country and shall act as CPPS enabled offices. 

• Flexibility for Pensioners: Pensioners can use the same bank account linked to their UAN-KYC (Universal Account Number) for receiving pensions. It is advisable to avoid failure/wrong payment due to bank account related errors. 

• No Transfers Between Offices: Regional offices will handle pension claims directly without transferring cases to another office, even if a pensioner’s bank branch falls outside the original office’s jurisdiction. 

• Mandatory Aadhaar Linking: For new pensions, Aadhaar must be linked of all the beneficiaries to ensure smooth submission of Digital Life Certificates (DLC), which are needed to verify if a pensioner is alive. 

• Streamlined Operations: The regional offices need to finish all tasks from the older decentralised system (up to December 2024), such as reconciling data and resolving failed transactions. 

• As the required Software for full scale CPPS is under development, till then, schedule for CPPS until further notice shall be as follows: 

1. • Weekly pension payments:  
     • Scroll Generation: Every Monday 

• • • Upload of payment files: by Next Day (Tuesday) forenoon 
    • Payment date of all files: Next day (Tuesday)  (Note: in case of holiday, by next working day) 
  • Monthly pension payments 

• • • Generation of BRS and scroll: by 24th of the month 

• • • Upload of scroll & payment files: by 25th of the month  

• • • Payment date for all files: 26th of the month 

• Future Updates: Once the software is fully developed, daily payments will also be enabled. 

Impact: 

• For pensioners: Faster, easier, and more reliable pension payments. No restrictions based on banks or locations. 

• For EPFO offices: A unified, efficient system that reduces administrative delays and jurisdictional complexities.