New Delhi, November 2 (IANS). According to the information given by the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, under the biggest campaign ever launched by the government, more than 1.8 lakh pensioners have got their Digital Life Certificate (DLC) made on the very first day.
The Department of Pension & Pensioners’ Welfare launched the third and largest nationwide Digital Life Certificate Campaign in 800 cities and districts across India from November 1 to 30.
“This is the biggest DLC campaign ever,” a statement issued by the Ministry of Personnel said. A total of 1.81 lakh DLCs were created till Friday evening.
This campaign is being run in collaboration with CGDA, Department of Telecommunications, Railways, UIDAI and Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) to reach out to all the pensioners living in remote areas of the country.
Additionally, “19 banks, 785 district post offices and 57 welfare associations” will also cooperate in the month-long campaign.
The ministry said the campaign aims to “promote digital empowerment of pensioners by using facial recognition technology”.
It was also said that during the campaign, technical assistance will be provided by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and the Unique Identification Authority of India.
“Facial recognition has been made more intuitive and convenient for elderly pensioners and can be used on Android as well as iOS,” the ministry said.
This technology enables the pensioner to be identified by facial scan using a smartphone camera at home, thereby completing the DLC submission process without the need to visit a bank or post office.
The aim is to digitally empower pensioners by using UIDAI’s face recognition application.
In June, the Employees’ Provident Fund Organization (EPFO) saw a more than three-fold increase in the number of EPS pensioners submitting facial authentication technology-based digital life certificates, from 2.1 lakh in 2022-23 to 2.1 lakh in 2023-24. It has reached 6.6 lakh.
EPFO said the 6.6 lakh facial scan-based DLC in 2023-24 is about 10 per cent of the total DLC received during the year. A total of around 60 lakh DLCs were received from pensioners during the last financial year.
—IANS
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