DAD Normalizes 5.35 Lakh SPARSH Pension Discrepancy Cases Across Armed Forces

The Defence Accounts Department (DAD) has nearly completed the cleanup of discrepant pension records under SPARSH, the Ministry of Defence’s digital pension administration system, after normalising all identified cases linked to the Indian Air Force and Indian Navy and almost all such cases related to the Indian Army.

According to the Ministry of Defence, the department has resolved all 1,45,182 discrepant cases identified in the Indian Air Force and Indian Navy categories. The figures include 1,12,638 cases of the Indian Air Force and 32,544 cases of the Indian Navy, taking the normalisation rate for both services to 100%.

The most substantial volume of pending discrepancies had been in the Army pension data, where the DAD has also made close to full progress. Out of 3,94,779 discrepant Indian Army cases, 3,90,336 cases have been normalised, which works out to approximately 98.8%. Only a small number of identified Army cases now remain to be corrected.

In total, the department has normalised 5,35,518 cases across the three Services — the Army, the Navy and the Air Force.

What SPARSH does

SPARSH, short for System for Pension Administration – Raksha, is the Defence Ministry’s centralised digital platform for managing defence pensions. The system is intended to handle pension processing in a largely paperless manner and to give pensioners access to pension-related services through a digital interface.

The DAD said the latest progress reflects coordinated work and a results-oriented effort to strengthen the SPARSH ecosystem and remove discrepancies in defence pension records. With the Air Force and Navy cases fully normalised and the Army figure now at 98.8%, the department is close to completing the correction of all identified discrepant cases across the three Armed Forces.