It has been observed that in the light of Regulation 2 (8) of the Employees Old-Age Benefits (Payment of Invalidity) Regulations 1983, a permanently disabled Insured Person is also asked to appear before the medical board after every six months for assessment of the degree of his invalidity. This practice not only creates considerable hassle for the invalid but unnecessarily increases the processing time of the invalidity pension and workload of the Regions.

2.       Regulation 2 (11) of these Regulations provides that the Institution may alter the period for payment orders and medical examination. Regulation 2 (11) reads as under:

 “Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in these regulations, the Institution may, if it deems fit, alter the period for which the payment orders will be issued and medical examination will be required.”

3.       Keeping in view the difficulties faced by the permanent disabled claimants
for appearing before the medical board, it has been decided that in such cases payment orders shall be issued for sixty months. After completing the total period of five years in accordance with the proviso of Sub-Section 3 of Section 23 of the EOB Act 1976, the invalidity pension will be converted into life invalidity pension. In this regard henceforth the following procedure shall be followed:

a)     At the time of referring the claimant to the medical board, the board shall be asked to clearly mention whether the incapacity is “permanent” or “temporary”

b)     In case of permanent incapacity and the claimant being otherwise entitled to invalidity pension, he shall be issued pension book containing sixty payment orders.

c)      On completion of five years, the invalidity pension shall be converted into invalidity pension for life and a pension book shall be issued to him.

d)     On attaining the age of 60 years (55 years in case of women), pension shall be recalculated by including the period for which invalidity pension has been paid in the light of the Section 24 of the EOB Act 1976.

4.      This issues with the approval of the Chairman.

 

 

                                                                                                                       Muhammad Hanif

                                                                                                                       Offtg. DDG (B&C)