Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare (DoPPW) organized a Nation- wide Digital Life Certificate Campaign from 1^st to 30^th November, 2023 at 602 locations in 105 cities across the country, in collaboration with 16 Pension Disbursing Banks, all Ministries/ Departments, 50 Pensioners’ Welfare Association, UIDAI, MeitY, with a view to spread awareness amongst all the Central Government pensioners as well as the Pension Disbursing Authorities for use of DLC/Face Authentication technology to submit Digital Life Certificate.

In this regard, Shri V Srinivas, Secretary, Department of Pension & Pensioners’ Welfare reviewed the progress of the Nationwide Digital life certificate Campaign 2.0 on 26.12.23 with 290 Nodal Officers from16 Pension Disbursing Banks and 50 Pensioners Welfare Associations. Secretary (P&PW) commended the yeomen services of Pension Disbursing Banks and Pensioners’ Welfare Associations in reaching out to pensioners and enabling them to submit Digital Life Certificates, in particular through Face Authentication Technique. Bank officials and Pensioners Welfare Associations have visited homes/ hospitals of bed-ridden/ infirm pensioners and generated their DLCs which was hugely beneficial to these pensioners.

Under the DLC Campaign 2.0 upto December 2023, 1.29 Crore pensioners have submitted DLCs, of which, more than 41 Lakh are Central Government Pensioners. As a result of the Campaign, the number of DLCs generated using Face Authentication Technique is more than 21.34 lakh, using Bio-metrics is 97.13 lakh and using Iris is 10.95 lakh. Of this, for Central Government Pensioners, 10.43 lakh is through Face Authentication, 28.90 lakh using Bio-metric and 2.33 lakh using Iris. Analysis of the age- wise generation of DLCs reveals that more than 27,000 pensioners above the age of 90 years and more than 2.84 lakh pensioners in the age group 80 to 90 years have used digital

mode. As per the dedicated DLC Portal created by the Department, the five leading States for DLC generation are Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala having generated 5.48 lakh, 5.03 lakh, 2.81 lakh, 2.78 lakh and 2.44 lakh DLCs respectively. The leading five Banks for DLC generation are State Bank of India, Punjab National Bank, Canara Bank, Bank of India and Central Bank of India which are also the leading Pension Disbursing Banks, with more than 8.22 lakh, 2.59 lakh, 0.92 lakh, 0.74 lakh and 0.69 lakh DLCs respectively.

Secretary (P&PW) said that a 100% saturation approach should be adopted by all the stakeholders to achieve the target of 50 lakh DLCs of Central Government Pensioners by the end of the Campaign, i.e., 31st March, 2024. A high-focus approach should be adopted for pensioners above 80 years of age. Digital empowerment of pensioners is a stated goal of the Government with a policy of ‘Minimum Government - Maximum Governance’.

Secretary, Department of Pension & Pensioners’ Welfare said that an exception list of pensioners, who have not submitted their life certificate till now, will be provided by Banks to all PWAs to enable associations to adopt 100% saturation approach to achieve the target of 50 Lakh DLCs. Pension Disbursing Banks will undertake a disaggregated review of the camps held with all nodal officers to identify success stories and areas of improvements. Secretary also said that the successful implementation of Nationwide DLC Campaign 2.0 in 2023, raises expectations for a more ambitious Nationwide DLC Campaign 3.0 in November, 2024.

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SNC/PK