PTI
NEW DELHI, JUNE 15
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has suggested an Aadhaar-based online system to check delay in processing cases of pensions.
The Prime Minister during a recent video-conference, while discussing problems being faced by Defence pensioners, with senior government officials of Personnel and other ministries had "stressed the need for using Aadhaar based system solutions".
"He (had) also stated that e-tracking of pension matter would be a good step towards preventing delays," according to minutes of meeting held on June 3, on Aadhaar-based authentication of life certificate for pensioners.
The Prime Minister suggested putting in place an e-tracking system to monitor delays in pension cases. "It was agreed that possibilities of the Online Tracking System for Pension Sanction and Payment (Bhavishya) being adopted by Ministry of Railways, Ministry of Defence, Department of Posts and Department of Telecommunications would be explored," it said.
Officials from Department of Financial Services(DFS), present during the meeting, informed that all banks have started accepting digital life certificates (DLCs). So far 2,06,024 pensioners have submitted DLCs. Of these, 1,47,629 take pension through banks and 35,135 through Defence Pension Disbursement Offices.
There are about 55 lakh central government pensioners across the country.
Representatives of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) informed the meeting that Ministry of Railways, Indian Army and Indian Air Force have been appointed as registrars for enrolment for Aadhaar numbers.
There was a concern expressed by Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) "over very high rate of rejection" of DLCs by the system , as the user tended to loose confidence in the process.
"It was agreed that for every rejection of the DLC, the system shall indicate the reason for rejection in the form of a speaking order. It was also hoped that during November, 2015, up to 50 per cent pensioners ought to avail benefit from 'Jeevan Pramaan'," the minutes said. The Prime Minister had in November last year launched an Aadhaar-based biometric verification system Jeevan Pramaan to enable pensioners to submit a digital life certificate on-line.
Jeevan Pramaan aims at sparing the pensioners and family pensioners the trouble of visiting bank or any other pension disbursing agency for submission of life certificates.
The DeitY also stressed that UIDAI should facilitate, promote and encourage wide-spread use of Aadhaar number for delivery of public services. Aadhaar numbers of individual beneficiaries should be made available by UIDAI to government agencies on demand, as per the minutes of the meeting.
It was agreed that State Bank of India and UIDAI will organise a camp in Manipur as early as possible to facilitate employees or pensioner in getting enrolled for Aadhaar number and registering them under Jeevan Pramaan software.
It was once again pointed out that there were a number of glaring discrepancies in banks' data, including the number of pensioners above the age of 100 years and a large number of duplicate records in banks' databases. The DFS has once again been asked to instruct banks to get their data cleansed on priority.
During the meeting, the National Informatics Centre (NIC) informed that the posters and pamphlets for giving wide publicity to Jeevan Pramaan are ready for display in bank branches, ATM locations, wellness centres, railway dispensaries, defence canteens, etc.
Willing agencies can obtain these posters and pamphlets from NIC, the minutes said.
It was also pointed out that contact numbers of some of the Common Service Centres (CSCs) being circulated were reportedly not correct.
"DeitY informed that 55,000 records have been cleaned. At present 6,000 CSCs are functional for Jeevan Pramaan. Secretary (DeitY) expressed concern at this.
"He stated that CSC SPV (Special Purpose Vehicle) should be asked to continuously update their databank and ensure that correct contact details are displayed at all points of time. Secretary (Pension) shared the concern," it said.
