India News | Over 30 Lakh Pensioners Used Digital Life Certificates: Centre

New Delhi, Dec 1 (PTI) More than 30 lakh Central government pensioners used digital life certificates (DLCs), the Department of Pension & Pensioners' Welfare (DoPPW) said on Thursday.

Submission of life certificates is an important activity to be carried out by pensioners every year in the month of November (with special provision for pensioners aged 80 years and above to submit their life certificates in October) to ensure continuity of their pension.

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In the traditional mode, pensioners had to present themselves before the pension disbursing authority for physical submission of their life certificate which entailed waiting at the bank branches in queues for this purpose. This was found inconvenient for the old, ailing pensioners.

Further, there was no mechanism for the pensioners to get a status regarding updation of their life certificates in the records of the pension disbursing authority.

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To enhance ‘ease of living' of Central government pensioners, the DoPPW has been promoting DLC i.e. 'jeevan pramaan' extensively. Initially, submission of DLCs using biometrics was commenced.

The DoPPW had this year launched a nationwide campaign for promotion of digital life certificate for central government pensioners. The objective of this campaign is to promote the use of face authentication technology and DLC thereby ensuring transparency and ease of usage.

A total of 30.34 lakh Central government pensioners has used DLC successfully, in which 2.82 lakh DLC has been created through face authentication technology, a statement issued by the Personnel Ministry said.

In order to overcome the challenge of certain pensioners not being able to give DLC due to fading bio-metrics, the Department of Pension engaged with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to develop a face-recognition technology system based on Aadhaar database whereby it is possible to give life certificate from any Android-based smartphone.

As per this facility, the identity of a person is established through face recognition technique and DLC gets generated.

Due to increasing awareness, the use of face authentication is gaining popularity and it has been able to provide a huge relief especially to the aged and infirm elderly population, the statement said.

To promote the campaign, State Bank of India and, in certain cities, Punjab National Bank, joined hands with the department and provided the camp venues in different cities, the statement said.

During November 1-30, 2022, special awareness camps were organised in different cities all over India from Srinagar in the North to Nagercoil (Kanyakumari district) in the South and from Guwahati in the East to Ahmedabad in the West.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)