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India's fifth Digital Life Certificate drive targets 2.3 crore certificates, most of them through Aadhaar face authentication
The month-long campaign runs across 2,000 cities and districts with banks, post offices, UIDAI and MeitY, and aims for 1.5 crore certificates generated by a face scan on a phone.
The Department of Pension and Pensioners' Welfare (DoPPW) began its fifth nationwide Digital Life Certificate (DLC) campaign on November 1, and it runs until November 30 in 2,000 cities and districts, according to a PIB release dated October 30. The department called it the biggest DLC campaign it has run. Its target is 2.30 crore digital life certificates, of which 1.50 crore are to be generated with face authentication.
Pensioners have to submit a life certificate every year for their pension to continue. Jeevan Pramaan, the government's biometric digital service, lets them do this without visiting a bank or pension office, PTI explained in The Economic Times. The Jeevan Pramaan portal run under MeitY says the system uses the Aadhaar platform to authenticate the pensioner, and that a successful authentication stores the certificate in a repository that pension disbursing agencies can access online. The portal counts 12.47 crore digital life certificates submitted since 2014.
This year's focus is face authentication, which works on Android and iOS phones, with MeitY and UIDAI giving technical support. The Hindu, reporting on South Central Railway's version of the drive, said pensioners can use UIDAI's Aadhaar Face RD app together with the Jeevan Pramaan app, enter details such as their pension payment order number and pension account, and then receive an SMS with a Pramaan ID and a link to download the certificate.
The PIB release lists 19 banks, 785 district post offices and 56 pensioners' welfare associations among the participants, alongside the Controller General of Defence Accounts, Railways, the Department of Telecommunications, EPFO, state governments, UIDAI and MeitY. Camps will also offer health check-ups and Aadhaar updates, doorstep service where needed, and grievance officers to resolve DLC problems, with mega camps in areas that have many pensioners.
The campaign is one of the largest annual uses of Aadhaar face authentication aimed at older citizens. Its results at the end of November will show how far phone-based face checks can replace fingerprint devices and branch visits for a group that often struggles with both.
