Aadhaar-verified digital life certificate not must for pension: EPFO

The EPFO issued a circular on March 23, stating that pensioners who were unable to submit digital life certificate should not be deprived of pension they are entitled to receive. The EPFO has done this as it has been bought to their attention that pensioners have stopped receiving pension due to non-submission of Digital Life Certificate or Jeevan Pramaan. In the circular, the EPFO has asked officers to re-examine all rejected cases and to that genuine cases are accepted. This circular pointed out the alternative methods for digital life certificate detailed in its November 8 circular.

The provident fund body had issued a circular on November 8, 2017 instructing its officers to make “All out efforts” to obtain Jeevan Pramaan digitally from EPS 1995 pensioners. However, the circular further stated that in case pensioners are unable to submit their life certificates digitally, then the physical form should be accepted in these two ways:

a) Accepting life certificates in physical format from those pensioners who have earlier submitted Aadhaar-linked digital life certificate; or
b) Pensioners who have not submitted Aadhaar-linked digital life certificate due to genuine reasons were also allowed submit the life certificate physically. They were required to mention the difficulty faced by them for not submitting their Aadhaar.

What is a Digital Life Certificate?
Digital Life Certificate or Jeevan Pramaan is a biometric-enabled digital service for pensioners. This service can be availed of without being physically present at the Pension Disbursing Agency or have the Life Certificate issued by the authority where they had served earlier and have it delivered to the disbursing agency.

By using this service, a successful authentication of the Digital Life Certificate is generated and gets stored in the Life Certificate Repository. The pension disbursing agency can access this certificate online.

Pensioners can either avail this service through the Jeevan Pramaan website, www.jeevanpramaan.gov.in, or by visiting designated centres. To generate a Digital Life Certificate, the pensioner is has to make sure the following factors are in place:

a) Aadhaar number
b) Existing mobile number
c) Registration of Aadhaar number with pension disbursing agency such as bank, post office etc.
d) Biometric device ( Registered as per the guidelines)
e) Computer Windows 7.0 and above or Android mobile/tablet with software 4.0 and above
f) Internet connectivity.