Union Minister Jitendra Singh on Wednesday announced a nationwide campaign for pensioners for submission of digital life certificates and use of face authentication application.
"In Amrit Kaal, a digitally empowered pensioner would enable creation of a digitally empowered nation," he said. Singh, the Minister of State for Personnel, said submission of life certificates is an important activity to be carried out by pensioners every year in November to ensure continuity of their pension. There is a special provision for pensioners aged 80 years and above to submit their life certificates in October.
In the traditional mode, pensioners had to visit the pension disbursing authority to physically submit their life certificate, and this was inconvenient, particularly for the old and ailing, he said.
Further, there was no mechanism through which pensioners could get a status on update of their life certificates in officials records, the minister said. He said to enhance the "ease of living" of central government pensioners, the government has been promoting the use of digital life certificate (DLC) Jeevan Pramaan, extensively.
Initially, the government launched a system to submit DLCs using biometrics. It then developed a face-recognition technology system based on Aadhaar database, which makes it possible to give a DLC from any android-based smartphone, the minister said.
This reduced the dependence of pensioners on external biometric devices and made the process more accessible and affordable, he added. Singh launched the nationwide campaign for November and urged all pensioners to avail the facility of face authentication technology.
He said the pension disbursing authorities have been issued directions for promoting the use of DLC/face authentication technology. Detailed guidelines in this regard have been issued to various ministries and departments as well as banks to reach out to maximum number of pensioners to avail the service, a Personnel Ministry statement said.
All Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS) wellness centres, dispensaries and hospitals have also been requested to set up camps in their premises for this purpose, it said. In addition, pensioners' associations have been sensitised to hold camps for DLC submission, the statement said.
Singh announced two new initiatives for the welfare of pensioners, which includes efforts to universalise the integrated pensioners' portal as 'Bhavishya 9.0'. This will be done by incorporating various standalone portals of the pensions department and portals of 17 pension disbursing banks so as to provide multiple services from a single window and a single login.
On completion of all phases of this integration, the retirees can choose a bank and branch for opening an online pension account, check their monthly pension slips, Form 16, status of life certificate as well as change their pension disbursing bank through Bhavishya, it said.
State Bank of India is the first pension disbursing bank to integrate its pension seva portal with Bhavishya on October 18. The process of integration with all the remaining 16 pension disbursing banks has commenced and will be completed soon, the statement said.
The Department of Pensions and Pensioners' Welfare will launch a monthly national 'Anubhav' awardees webinar series. Each episode will feature two Anubhav awardees as speakers who will share their experiences, besides motivating and raising awareness among retiring employees on filling up their own experiences on the Anubhav portal.
Anubhav is a means for retiring employees to showcase through write-ups significant achievements they made and their contribution in enhancing the effectiveness of various government policies during their service period.
Selected write-ups are awarded with a medal, a certificate and a cash prize of Rs 10,000. "It is envisaged that this culture of documenting administrative history of the nation through office-leaving notes by retirees on Anubhav portal will become the foundation stone of good governance and administrative reforms in future," the statement added.
(With PTI Inputs)
