Jaipur’s 66-years old Ram Nath retired from PWD department has been suffering from Arthritis for last two year, but still has to go for annual verification at district office for his pension. Ram Nath is not alone. Lakhs of pensioners like him have to do the same even after having some serious problems. The 2004-batch IAS officer Dr Samit Sharma comes as a saviour for such persons. He has produced an App which uses Aadhaar platform for face recognition-based authentication of pensioners in the comforts of their homes. Over 94 lakhs pensioners in Rajasthan will benefit from this move.
Being secretary to Social Justice and Empowerment Department, Mr. Sharma has taken many innovative steps. Now pensioners can prove they are alive, from the confines of their homes, through the app, ‘RAJSSP’ produced by him. With this, Rajasthan has become the first state to have carried out such digital annual verification. Over 28000 pensioners have already verified their life by using this app in past 25 days.
Speaking with Indian Masterminds, Mr. Samit said, “If pensioner fail to verify that they are alive, their pensions will be stopped. Though, we had issued order that verification for aged and physically weak pensioners will be done at their residences only. But it was not possible to do so many physical verification. So in digital era, we tried to solve this problem with technology. We come with RajSSP Mobile Application which simplified in process, improved access, transparent and worked as quick and time bound.”
RajSSP Mobile Application was launched on 15th February 2023. It has digitized the process of Annual Verification. The digital verification will save government’s time and money and also aid into reducing the chance of possible frauds.
BENEFITS
The pensioners get their pension through the department’s centralized treasury system in their respective bank account under direct benefit transfer (DBT) scheme. To receive the pension benefits on a regular basis, these pensioners are required to undergo an ‘Annual Verification’ every year either by presenting themselves personally or by the help of E-Mitra or Point of Service. The requirement to annual verification causes huge hardships particularly to the aged, especially abled and or/infirm pensioners.
Mr Samit said, “Our Social Justice and Empowerment Department, National information centre and UIDAI, they all worked together for 4 months and find this solution. Promising a transparent system coming up with doorstep availability of our schemes, we have launched this app.”
PROCESS
First of install the RajSSP App (Rajasthan Social Pension) and Aadhar FaceRD APP, then, all the mobile holder has to enter his own mobile number.
After that OTP has to be received and verified with the mobile number. After this complete information of the pension holder has to be entered like – Aadhaar Card scheme name, name of the pension holder, Aadhaar number, PPO – Pension Payment Order, after that the camera has to be turned on in the mobile to capture the face of the pension holder.
While capturing the photo of the pension holders, the pension holder will have to mimic his/her own shape so that the face capture will be verified. In this way pension annual verification will be done through RajSSP mobile app.
