PESHAWAR: Simplifying lengthy bureaucratic procedure and extensive paperwork, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has eased the drawing of pension by its former employees to their relief.

The move comes in the shape of the approval of the Pensioners Envelope Scheme.

The documents available with Dawn show that chief secretary Amjad Ali Khan approved the scheme earlier this month.

A letter of the establishment department written to administrative secretaries and other government functionaries read that retired government employees went through considerable incon-venience while processing their pension documents.

It said the finalisation of pension documents remained incomplete even five to six months after the employees` retirement.

The letter said according to the pension rules, work on an employee`s pension should be initiated six months ahead of his or her retirement.

It, however, noted that paperwork took even five to six months after the employee`s retirement and later, the payment of commutation, personal pension, benevolent fund, group insurance and retirement grants from the respective agencies took another two to six months.

`This creates discontentment and mistrust among retired employees after rendering long service, thereby act as disincentive to the serving government employees,` it said.

The letter said the objective of the PES was to hasten the pension documents` preparation by assigning timelines to several steps involved in the process.`The scheme divides all processes and stepsintofourquarters.

All the effort will turn into the outcome of handing over of an envelope containing (information on) commutation, pension cards and financial contributions to the retiring employee in the last week/day or before his retirement,` it said.

The letter also said it was binding on all departments to start pension documents of their retiring employees on year before the date of their retirement.

`The department will have to make ensure that all the steps required to be completed within a particular quarter are completed within the stipulated time.

According to it, in the first quarter of the retirement year, the department concerned will issue superannuation notification and the employee is asked to submit his or her pension documents, while in the second, work on the pension papers begins with the examination of the documents and filling of pension forms.

In the third quarter, deficiencies in pension papers are removed incooperation with the Accountant General (AG) office and it will be ensured that the AG office is ready to issue seal authority before the end of third quarter, which shows final payment, commutation, monthly pension and contains pension book.

During the last quarter, all drawing and disbursement officers prepare and submit final payment bill in the AG office for the payment through employee bank account.

Also, the benevolent fund and group insurance will be finalised with the relevant authority.

As the last step, retiring employee will be handed over an envelope containing pension papers completion certificates and any other related document on the last day ofhis/her service.

When contacted, special secretary of the establishment department Syed Akhtar Hussain Shah said the superannuation was a lengthy process and it involves at least 21 steps, which required to be fulfilled.

He said the entire process took about six months to two years inroutine and at times, some people also misused the process to create problems for the honest officials.

Mr. Shah said at times, the process became so problematic that the people even committed suicide due to psychological burden.

He said keeping the problems in view, the chief secretary approved the scheme.

`This process will start a year before an employee`s retirement.

On the day of his retirement, the person will get all the cards, cheques and receipts of money transfer in an envelope.

`We have planned that the chief minister will distribute envelopes to the batches of retiring employees,` he said.

The specialsecretary saidforthe employees retiring in less than a year after its implementation, the policy would be implemented on fast track.

He said the establishment department had gathered data of personnel retiring until 2025 from all departments and that the figure would be stored on the centralised database.