SHILLONG, July 15: In an attempt to help beneficiaries overcome the difficulties associated with tedious procedures to avail their pension, the Finance department in collaboration with the National Informatics Centre (NIC) has developed a mobile app called ‘The Pensioner’s Life Certificate Verification’ that offers pensioners a secure, easy and hassle-free interface for verifying that they are alive to the pension-disbursing authorities from the comfort of their homes.
The app uses ‘Deep Learning Artificial Intelligence’ technology whereby it can authenticate the pensioner from real-time photographs and their identity will then be verified with the help of ‘Face Verification Technology’.
“The AI algorithms used will learn through experience over time and will increase its capabilities in terms of face verification as well as liveness detection,” a statement issued here said.
All photographs captured are stored in a local server not outside the state or the country. The whole exercise has been closely monitored by the Chief Secretary to ensure ease of use of the app by the pensioners.
In his address, Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma, who launched the app on Thursday, congratulated the Finance department and NIC, stating that the app is an example of how using simple technology, the administration and services can be brought closer to the people. “The app has come where and when it is needed the most considering the fact that the pensioners are elderly people, who have difficulties in travelling for services specially in these times of COVID when their going out should be minimised,” Conrad said.
Others present with the chief minister during the launch included Information Technology Minister Hamletson Dohling, Chief Secretary MS Rao, Additional Chief Secretary Rebecca Suchiang, Secretary of Finance PK Agrahari, State Informatics Officer T Dkhar, and pensioners who joined the launch via video conferencing.
Earlier, Rao said that Meghalaya is one of the pioneering states to develop and use the technology for the convenience of the pensioners. He also informed that the data of the pensioners is not shared with any foreign-based server and pensioners can avail services from the comfort of their homes.
It has been informed that the frequency of face verification for pensioners is once in six months or twice a calendar year, while the records are digitally available with the Treasury Office to automate the processing of the monthly pension.
For better end-to-end delivery of service, a chatbot called MEDA has also been incorporated into the app using which pensioners can make queries and also suggest improvements in the app.
The app is available on Google Play Store, and it is yet to be made available on the Apple’s app store for iOS users.
It is worth mentioning here that ‘Life Certificate Verification’ is a process wherein pensioners have to appear in front of the Treasury Officer or Pension Disbursing Authority to prove that they are still alive to receive the pension.
Means to go by the ‘Life Certificate Verification’ are paper-based life certificate, physical appearance, biometric fingerprint verification system using kiosk, or Jeevan Pramaan. However, in order to avail most of the services, the pensioner has to visit the Treasury Office. This posed a hindrance and caused inconvenience to pensioners, most of whom are subject to sickness or simply unable to travel due to complications due to old age.
Topping it off, due to COVID-19 situation, the elderly have been highly advised against moving out of their homes.
The app aims to mitigate their problems and ensure efficient services from the comfort of their homes.
