The Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare (DoPPW) under the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions (PERSMIN) has recently issued an Office Memorandum (OM) laying down latest guidelines regarding changing of spouse’s name or surname after retirement. 

The office memorandum issued on 24 October 2024, clarifies the procedures for pensioners said, “There is no separate procedure prescribed in the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021 or CCS (Pension) Rules, 1972 for change of name/surname in the PPO of Government employees or spouse after retirement. The PPO is issued on the basis of service record/service book of the employee and the maintenance of service book is concerned with DoPT,” it said.

DoPPW added that the matter was discussed in a recent inter-ministrial Review meeting of pending grievances within in the Centralized Pension Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPENGRAMS) held under the chairmanship of Director (PW), Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare. 

Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation (MoSPI) were informed that they may follow DoPT’s earlier memorandum from March 12, 1987, for change of name of family pensioner also.

Incase Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation feels that there is some discrepancy in the documents submitted by the complainant family pensioner in support of her application for change of name in the PPO, they may sortit out with her directly and ensure that the requests for change of name fulfils the condition of the DoPT’s earlier memorandum from March 12, 1987.