Modi govt known to make optimum use of tech to bring ease of living for elderly: Jitendra Singh

New Delhi, Dec 11 (PTI) The Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government is known to make optimum use of technology towards bringing about ease of living and dignity for the elderly, Union Minister Jitendra Singh said on Monday, mentioning measures such as the submission of digital life certificates by pensioners.

He said that banks are providing doorstep service for the submission of digital life certificates annually to retired employees.

“Due to such technologies, senior citizens do not have to go through the tedious process of submitting the life certificate,” said Minister of State for Personnel Singh.

Most of the functioning has been converted online and, in order to bring in transparency, accountability and citizen participation, human interface has been reduced to the bare minimum, he added.

Addressing a press conference, Singh said the Modi-led government is known to make the optimum use of technology towards bringing about ease of living and dignity for the elderly.

The Department of Pension & Pensioners Welfare is possibly one of the first departments in the government sector to have started using the latest facial recognition technology for establishing Aadhaar-based identification of elderly pensioners to generate digital life certificates, he said.

“This (digital life certificate) was a huge step towards enhancing the ease of living of pensioners as they could now also submit life certificates through digital modes from the comfort of their homes instead of only in the traditional mode of physical life certificates by visiting banks and post offices,” the minister said.

Briefing the media about the progress of the Department of Pension & Pensioners Welfare’s digital life certificate campaign 2.0, Singh said more than 1.17 crore digital life certificates across pensioners of all categories were generated in November. Of these, the number of digital life certificates generated using the face authentication technique was more than 19.52 lakh.

Singh said more than 24,000 pensioners above the age of 90 used digital mode to submit life certificates for drawing pension.

According to the dedicated digital life certificate portal created by the department, the leading states for digital life certificate generation are Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, having generated 5.07 lakh, 4.55 lakh and 2.65 lakh certificates, respectively.

The leading banks for digital life certificate generation are State Bank of India and Punjab National Bank — the leading pension disbursing banks — with 7.68 lakh and 2.38 lakh digital life certificates, respectively.

Singh said the Modi government has also done away with about 2,000 obsolete or redundant rules towards bringing about ease of living for all citizens.

“Family pension has been enabled without the service duration bar of 10 years and divorced daughters are also now enabled to receive family pension,” the minister said.

Department of Pension & Pensioners Welfare Secretary V Srinivas said the nationwide digital life certificate campaign 2.0 represents a significant milestone in the initiatives towards ensuring ease of living of pensioners.