Meghalaya: NIC develops app for making pension disbursal easy

By Daiaphira Kharsati

SHILLONG:

The National Informatics Centre (NIC) in collaboration with the state Finance Department has developed a Mobile App called 'The Pensioner's Life Certificate Verification' which offers pensioners a secure, easy and hassle-free platform for verifying themselves to the Pension Disbursing Authorities from the comfort of their home using smartphones. 

The App uses deep learning Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology whereby it can detect the liveness of a pensioner from real-time photographs of living pensioners, and the pensioner's identity will then be verified with the help of Face Verification Technology. 

Notably, Life Certificate Verification is a process in which the Pensioners (Service/Family) of the State Government have to appear in front of the Treasury Officer or Pension Disbursing Authority to prove that they are still alive to receive the pension. 

To do this, the pensioner has to choose any one of the four processes viz.  Paper-based Life Certificate, Physical Appearance, Biometric Fingerprint Verification System using Kiosk or Jeevan Pramaan. However to avail of any one of the first three services one has to visit the Treasury Office.

The earlier process of verification posed a hindrance to many pensioners especially those residing in the rural areas, besides causing inconvenience to the pensioners who had to visit the Pension Disbursing Agency time and again, the NIC informed.

Furthermore, during the current pandemic situation, it is very difficult for the pensioner to come out of their houses to visit the Treasury for verification. 

The Artificial Intelligence algorithms used will learn through experience and with time, it will increase in its capabilities of Face Verification as well as Liveness Detection, the NIC stated. 

Furthermore, the whole exercise has been closely monitored by the Chief Secretary to ensure ease of use of the App by old-age pensioners.

According to the NIC, the App is a user-friendly citizen-centric service designed specifically to help the pensioners of the State to submit online the Life Certificate digitally using a smartphone with an internet connection. 

The App will also enable them to receive the pension without moving from their house, and this is appropriate, especially during the current pandemic situation in the country. 

The frequency of Face Verification will be once in 6 months or twice in a Calendar Year. The records will be digitally available with the Treasury Office to automate the processing of the monthly Pension for pensioners, a press notification from NIC read.

In addition to the above features, for better end-to-end delivery of service, a chatbot called MEDA has also been incorporated in the App where the pensioners can ask queries and type the suggestions for improvement of the App etc. which will be duly monitored by the company.

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