Summary of this article
DoPPW issues rules regarding family pension and death gratuity
Different disbursement procedures for service-related deaths
Death gratuity rates depend on length of service, up to Rs 25 lakh
The Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare (DoPPW) recently issued an office memorandum (OM) regarding the entitlement of family members of a deceased government employee who opted for the Unified Pension Scheme (UPS) under the National Pension System (NPS). The OM lays down the provisions under the Central Civil Services (Implementation of Unified Pension Scheme under the National Pension System) Rules, 2025, and the Central Civil Services (Payment of Gratuity under National Pension System) Rules, 2021. These will govern service-related matters and gratuity, respectively.
Family Pension Benefits And Disbursement
• The basis of the entitlement framework is Rule 19 of the CCS (Implementation of UPS under NPS) Rules, 2025, which determines the benefits for the family members upon the death of the UPS-enrolled government employee.
• In case of a deceased employee who had exercised an option or chosen the default option (under Rule 10 of the 2025 Rules), benefits under the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021, and CCS (Extraordinary Pension) Rules, 2023, will apply. In such a case, the Head of Office will be responsible for taking action regarding benefits disbursements.
• However, if the death is service–related, the treatment of benefits will be different. If the death is attributable to the service, the Head of Office will proceed with the benefit disbursement according to the CCS (Extraordinary Pension) Rules, subject to the other conditions.
• If the benefits are payable under either the CCS (Extraordinary Pension) Rules or the CCS (Pension) Rules, the government contribution and any returns earned on that contribution within the UPS corpus will be transferred to the government account.
• The remaining amount available in the individual corpus will be payable in a lump sum to the legally wedded spouse of the deceased Subscriber as of the date of death. If the Subscriber does not have a legally wedded spouse, the amount will be paid to the legal heir(s).
• If the Subscriber’s option or default choice (under Rule 10) aligns with availing benefits under the UPS, the benefits will be offered according to the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (Operationalisation of Unified Pension Scheme under National Pension System) Regulations, 2025.
Death Gratuity
In case of the death of an employee during service, who opted for UPS and NPS, death gratuity benefits will be provided to the employee’s family as per Rule 22 of the CCS (Payment of Gratuity under NPS) Rules, 2021, in addition to the family pension entitlements.
The rate of death gratuity will be based on the length of qualifying service:
• For less than one year of service, the family receives twice the emoluments.
• For service between one year and less than five years, the rate will be six times the emoluments.
• Employees with five years or more but less than 11 years of service qualify for 12 times their emoluments.
• Service between 11 years and less than 20 years will fetch 20 times the emoluments.
• For employees with twenty years or more of qualifying service, the family will be entitled to receive half of the emoluments for every completed six-month period of service, subject to a maximum of 33 times the emoluments.
Notably, the maximum amount of death gratuity payable under the rule is capped at Rs 25 lakh.
The notified rules will become applicable from the date of their gazette notification, per the OM dated October 29, 2025.
