Soon a portal to help pensioners get digital life certificates

New Delhi: A new portal to facilitate lakhs of pensioners in getting digital life certificates and other beneficiary features will soon be made functional, Union Minister Jitendra Singh said here on Thursday.

"A pension portal is being finalised. Very soon it will be done," he said while inaugurating a two-day national workshop on best practices in citizen-centric governance here.

There are about 56 lakh pensioners.

The Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, said the portal will have a feature for a pensioner to upload his biometric details like fingerprints, from his home or anywhere through internet to enable him in generating a digital life certificate.

A pension disbursing bank can access the portal to get digital life certificate, the Minister said.

He said that it will have an option for the pensioner to link his Aadhaar number with the life certificate. "Though it will be an option. Pensioners can also give hard copy of life certificate to the pension disbursing banks in case they do not want to take the option of digital life certificate," Singh said.

A pensioner has to visit bank annually for submission of life certificates to ensure continuation of his pension.

"This too is one of the revolutionary steps of the present government which will undo the practice of producing a life certificate which an elderly pensioner was required to produce from time to time. The new provision will not only make the process easier but will also be a befitting tribute to the dignity of the elder citizens of this country," he said.

Singh said that the government's priority is last man in the last queue and the goal of 'maximum governance, minimum government' is also aimed at achieving this objective.

"We are guided by the 'Antyodaya' philosophy of Pt Deen Dayal Upadhyaya, wherein the ultimate yardstick of any welfare scheme depends on whether or not its benefits have reached the lowest of the lowest strata of society," the Minister said.

He also asked the representatives of the state governments and union territories to promote self-attestation of documents. "It is a revolutionary decision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government to promote self-attestation of documents for various works. States should promote this in their own way," the Minister said.

Singh said, it is a matter of satisfaction that in less than one month of the Prime Minister's announcement during his Independent Day address from Red Fort, we have started working on two of the important initiatives announced by him.

"One of them is the process of identifying posts where interviews for selection or appointment can be discontinued and the other is Prime Minister's 'Startup India, Standup India' idea which is sought to be promoted among the youth," he said.