Every year in November, one of the most important requirements for government pensioners is to produce life certificates to approved pension disbursing companies such as banks, after which their pension is deposited into their accounts.
A digital life certificate, or DLC, is a document issued under the IT Act to pensioners that includes the biometrics and other information from their Aadhaar cards. This serves as proof of the pensioners' continued existence, upon which the monthly pension benefit is calculated.
Earlier, the person receiving the pension had to either appear in-person before the pension disbursing agency to obtain their life certificate, or the authority they previously served had to issue the certificate and transmit it to the disbursing agency.
Digital life certificate was essentially introduced to address the issue of inconvenience to elderly people who are often not in a position to present themselves in front of the authority.
How to obtain your digital life certificate?
Step 1: Fill out the online application form with your information, Aadhaar number, and cellphone number to obtain an OTP. Click OK after entering the OTP.
Step 2: On the next screen, enter the required data, such as the pensioner's name, PPO number, kind of pension, sanctioning authority's name, disbursing agency's name, email address, bank account number, etc.
Step 3: Look for the little grey box. Once you have done that, click the "Scan Finger" button to begin the process of scanning your finger and iris to register your biometrics.
Step 4: When the fingerprint/iris authentication is successful, the pensioner's life certificate can be seen, and an SMS acknowledgment is delivered to the pensioner's mobile phone.
Step 5: The SMS will include the Jeevan Pramaan Certificate ID. The certificates, or DLCs, are kept in the Life Certificate Repository and made accessible to pensioners and the pension disbursing agency at any time and from any location.
From November 1–19, the Department of Pension held special awareness campaigns in cities across India, from Srinagar to Nagercoil (Kanyakumari District) and from Guwahati to Ahmedabad. This national campaign's goal was to encourage the adoption of facial authentication technology and DLC, providing transparency and "ease of usage" in the process. The department plans to hold 14 more DLC awareness camps across the country in the near future.
