Kerala has the most comprehensive safety net in the country for vulnerable sections in the society. Kerala was the first state to have introduced agriculture workers’ pension. 3.6 million people are benefited through different pension schemes. A sizeable amount of these programmes have been transferred to local governments. Poor administration of the social welfare pension programmes have resulted in substantial delays in payment of pensions, and complaints of duplications, defalcations also come up regularly. The Sevana Pension application is aimed at streamlining the disbursement of social welfare benefits to the poorest of the poor in the society.
Sevana Social Welfare Pension is the application software deployed in the local governments within the Kerala state with the intention of providing efficient and transparent mechanism in the social security services executed through them. Currently this application covers seven schemes with more than 16 lakhs beneficiaries, who are belonging to the weaker sections in the society. Implementation of this application has resulted in the total improvement in the efficiency and service delivery of local governments in this sphere.
- The Government of Kerala introduced social security schemes in order to give comfort to very poor family members
- Sevana Pension online application is a web based application developed and supported by Information Kerala Mission for Distribution of social security pensions to beneficiaries of kerala
- Currently six types of social security pensions are being distributed through local bodies (Grama panchayats, Municipalities and Corporations) through Sevana Pension application
Pension Schemes
- National Old Age Pension
- Widow Pension
- Pension to Unmarried Women above 50 years
- Pension to the Physically Challenged Persons
- Pension to the Mentally Challenged Persons
- Agriculture Labour Pension
- Unemployment wages (Previously handled by Training and Employment Department)
The Government have recently decided to computerise the pension processes to make it more fast and efficient. The programme has been initiated using the Sevana - Pensions application software developed by the Information Kerala Mission (IKM).
Scope of Services
The application handles the following procedures involved in the entire processes.
- Receipt and processing of Application (with linkage/ integration with the Soochika application software of IKM).
- Capturing the details of approval of pension by the Local Government.
- Approval details from other agencies as applicable.
- Preparation of list of beneficiaries.
- Calculation of requirement of money for each category of pensions for a specified period .
- Distribution of available amount accurately as per monthly rates in accordance with the seniority of beneficiaries.
- Distribution of arrears as per seniority, when a revision in pension happens.
- Generation of bill in the prescribed format with all details for submitting in the Treasuries for drawing of amount.
- Printing of money order on pre-printed continuous stationery, specially supplied by India Post for this purpose (only where Electronic Money is not accepted at Post Offices).
- Creation of XML (Extensible Markup Language) format files for electronic money order (eMO) in places with Post Offices where the eMO facility is available.
- Utilization certificate in the prescribed format.
Future Plan
- Introducing Biometric vein detection or linking with the AADHAR for avoiding duplication. State wise duplicate records can be cut down once the scheme will be implemented.
- Introduction of multiple welfare pension data base and its Integration for the whole state are to be considered. Centralised disbursement through a single eMO-XML file at the state level is also planned, but requires the amendment of the Act, which mandates disbursement to be the responsibility of local government. This centralisation would greatly improve the disbursement mechanism, while retaining the beneficiary selection functions with local governments.
- Government acts and rules are applicable for each business re-engineering aspects.
- Possible integration with other databases available with state such as welfare board pensions etc.