Who administers defence pension

The Principal Controller of Defence Accounts (Pensions) — PCDA(Pensions), based in Prayagraj (Allahabad) — is the central authority responsible for sanctioning, accounting for, and overseeing the disbursement of defence pensions, operating under the Ministry of Defence's Defence Accounts Department.

The broad categories of defence pension

Defence pension isn't a single scheme — it covers several distinct categories, including service (retiring) pension, disability and invalid pension, family pension (ordinary, special and liberalised, depending on circumstances of death or disability), war injury pension, and retirement gratuity with commutation. Which category applies to a given case depends on individual service history and circumstances — this is exactly the kind of determination that has to come from PCDA or your Record Office, not a general guide.

What SPARSH is

SPARSH — System for Pension Administration (Raksha) — is the government's digital platform for defence pension administration. It represents a shift toward direct digital processing and disbursement, rather than pension administration running solely through a network of disbursing banks as under the older system. If your pension has been migrated to SPARSH, it becomes your primary portal for status checks and pension-related service requests.

Where to actually go for help

  • Pension status, entitlement or calculation queries — PCDA(Pensions) directly, or the SPARSH portal if your pension has been migrated to it.
  • Ongoing disbursement issues — your Pension Disbursing Authority (typically your bank branch handling the pension account).
  • Document or service-record queries — your last Record Office, which holds your service history.
  • General "who do I even start with" confusion — this site's Who Do I Contact? tool, though pension routing there is intentionally limited to pointing you toward these starting points rather than a specific office, since this directory doesn't maintain its own PCDA contact database.

Why this site doesn't publish pension rates or calculations

Pension amounts, revision cycles (such as One Rank One Pension revisions) and eligibility thresholds are genuinely complex, case-specific, and change on a schedule set by government order — not something a directory can respectfully summarise as "your figure." Publishing a specific number here that goes stale or doesn't account for someone's specific case would do more harm than good. That's a deliberate limitation, not an oversight — for real numbers, PCDA(Pensions) and the SPARSH system are the sources of record.