KD NEWS SERVICE
NEW DELHI, Dec 11: Department of Pension & Pensioners Welfare (DoP&PW) is possibly one of the first departments in the Govt sector to have started using the latest “Face Recognition Technology” for establishing Aadhar based identification of elderly pensioners to generate “Digital Life Certificate”.
Disclosing this today while addressing a press conference at National Media Centre here, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Science & Technology; MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh said, the Government led by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi is known to make optimum use of technology towards bringing about ease of living and dignity for the elderly.
The Minister also briefed the media about the progress of the Digital Life Certificate (DLC) Campaign 2.0 of the DoP&PW.
Dr Jitendra Singh said that the Banks are providing doorstep service for submission of Digital Life Certificates (DLC) annually to retired employees. Due to such technologies, the senior citizens do not have to go through the tedious process of submitting the life certificate. Most of the functioning has been converted online and in order to bring in transparency, accountability and citizen participation, the human interface has been reduced to the bare minimum, he said.
The DLC Campaign 2.0 sought to Improve Pensioners Welfare, Digital Life Certificate (Jeevan Pramaan), through use of Biometric and Iris based on Aadhar database and the face authentication technology. In 2021, the Department of Pension and Pensioners Welfare had adopted Face Authentication Technology for generation of DLCs using Android Mobiles.
“This was a huge step towards enhancing Ease of Living of pensioners as they could now also submit Life Certificates through digital modes from the comfort of their home, instead of only in the traditional mode of physical Life Certificates by visiting Banks and Post Offices,” he said.
Under the DLC Campaign 2.0, DoP&PW collaborated with Pension Disbursing Banks, Ministries/ Departments, Pensioners’ Welfare Associations, UIDAI, MeitY from November 1-30, 2023. The DLC Campaign was conducted at 597 locations in 100 cities across India. 297 Nodal Officers from Pension Disbursing Banks, 44 Pensioner Welfare Associations worked assiduously to successfully implement the DLC Campaign 2.0.
Pensioner Portal for improved coordination with Banks and CPENGRAMS grievance portal for timely redressal of Pensioner Grievances, ANUBHAV Awards for documenting administrative experiences, Pension Adalats are being periodically organised and Pre-Retirement Counselling Workshops are being held every quarter,” he said.
To ensure that the benefit of using digital modes for Life Certificate submission reaches pensioners in all parts of the country, State capitals and major cities were among the 100 cities where camps were held at multiple locations, which included Delhi, Visakhapatnam, Guwahati, Patna, Raipur, Goa, Ahmedabad, Shimla, Ranchi, Bengaluru, Thiruvananthapuram, Bhopal, Mumbai, Bhubaneshwar, Ludhiana, Ajmer, Gangtok, Chennai, Hyderabad, Tripura, Lucknow and Dehradun amongst others. With a view to technologically empowering the pensioners, in addition to generating their DLCs, the process was also explained to them for future use.
In the camps held by Pension Disbursing Banks and Pensioners’ Welfare Associations, as well as in their visits to the homes/ hospitals to assist aged/ sick pensioners, several success stories emerged, relating the satisfaction and comfort of the pensioners at the outreach to them.
In his address, Secretary, DoP&PW Shri V. Srinivas, said the nationwide DLC Campaign 2.0 represents a significant milestone in the initiatives taken by the Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare towards ensuring Ease of Living of pensioners.
