EFT becomes boon for retired govt employees

The government’s Electronic Fund Transfer (EFT) endeavor as part of its ‘digital Bangladesh’ campaign has been godsend for retired public servants in the district as elsewhere in the country facilitating those senior citizens in hassle-free pension withdrawal.

“Once, that was like a nightmare in every month to withdraw my pension. I used to need two to three days to get my own money. But, now it’s just a matter of one time visit to bank to get the money owing to digitization,” said Alauddin Ahmed, retired headmaster of Pachukharkandi Government Primary School of Naria Upazila in the district.

Ahmed, who got retired from his teaching profession in 2009, said, before introducing the EFT system, the retired employees had to visit the Upazila accounts office first to submit their accounts book for authorization and wait till next day for getting the authorization.

“We could not withdraw our pension money from the bank without the authorization and we had to take a long queue at the accounts office at least two times every month to get that,” Ahmed said.

In case of sickness or ailment, he said, the retired persons used to need authorization to someone else to go through the process on behalf of them.

“We had to spend a good share of our pension money for transportation cost for that manual bureaucratic tangles,” Ahmed said conveying thanks to the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for launching her one of the ten innovative initiatives ‘Digital Bangladesh’.

“Currently, I get notification in my mobile through text message that my pension money has been deposited to my bank accounts. I can easily withdraw money from the bank at my convenient time,” he said in a voice with full of relief and satisfaction.