Pension woes? Log on to Rashtrapati Bhavan portal

If you have not received your pension despite reminders or have been subjected to injustice and want a way out, now you can log on to Rashtrapati Bhavan's helpline portal and file your petition directly to the President.

The new portal, http://helpline.rb.nic.in, which was launched on Friday by President Pratibha Patil promises to process your petition and direct it to the ministry or the department concerned directly within seven working days.

Not only that, you will also get a Unique Registration Number with which your can track the progress of your petition.

"This portal is the beginning of a new chapter in the Rashtrapati Bhavan. We receive at an average 400 petitions per day from people. We have set up this portal so that the people have a mechanism by which they know what is happening to their petition," Christy Fernandez, secretary to the President said.

Fernandez said it has been Patil's endeavour to modernise documentation in the Bhavan and that the President's Secretariat would also try to convert even the petitions received in paper format to digital.

"Citizens send petitions to the President only when all other options are closed for them. Once we receive the petition, we will assign appropriate grievance category and forward it to the right mnistry or department. The machine will automatically generate a reminder every 15 days asking the relevant authorities to update the steps taken on the petition," Fernandez said.

He said the system has being integrated with the centralised Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System which will monitor the progress of the petition.

Fernandez said though at present, the website is in English, they would also try and introduce the same in other languages too.

"We receive all kinds of petition, some genuine and other frivolous. Through this system, the citizens would have a more detailed contact with us," he said.

Fernandez said at present 70 per cent of petitions were in paper format and only 30 per cent through internet.

"In future, once people get to know about this facility, the number of e-petitions would increase," he said adding that the main challenge before the scheme was that not all state governments are attached to the CPGRAMS.

"Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Gujarat are doing good when it comes to CPGRAMS but there are many states which are not connected to it. This is a major challenge for the scheme," he added.