Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma launches Mobile App using Face Recognition

PENSIONER'S LIFE CERTIFICATE

A REPORTER

SHILLONG: Chief Minister, Conrad K Sangma, launched the Mobile App on Pensioner's Life Certificate using Face Recognition in the presence of the Information Technology Minister, Hamletson Dohling, Chief Secretary, M S Rao, Additional Chief Secretary, Rebecca Suchiang, Secretary, Finance, P K Agrahari, State Informatics Officer, T Dkhar and pensioners who joined the launch via video conferencing.

'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. The pensioner can do this either by paper-based Life Certificate, Physical Appearance, Biometric Fingerprint verification system using Kiosk or Jeevan Pramaan.

However to avail of most of these services the pensioner has to visit the Treasury Office. This posed a hindrance and inconvenience to pensioners due to old age, sickness and taking the travel to Treasury Offices. Further, the current pandemic situation added to the difficulties of a pensioner for live verification. "To overcome these difficulties and to make services easier for a pensioner, NIC in collaboration with the Finance Department, Government of Meghalaya has developed a Mobile App called 'The Pensioner's Life Certificate Verification' which offers pensioners a secure, easy and hassle-free interface for verifying their liveness to the Pension Disbursing Authorities from the comfort of their homes using smartphones.

The App uses DEEP LEARNING Artificial Intelligence 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. The AI algorithms used will learn through experience and with time it will increase in its capabilities of Face Verification as well as Liveness Detection. All the photographs captured are stored in a local server, not outside the State or the country. The whole exercise is being closely monitored by the Chief Secretary to ensure ease of use of the App by old-age pensioners.

Congratulating the Finance Department and NIC, Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma in his address said that the app is an example of how by using simple technology administration and services can be brought closer to the people.

''The app is important because the pensioners are elderly people who have difficulties in travelling for services especially in these times of COVID when they should be going out too much," said the Chief Minister.

Earlier, Chief Secretary M.S. Rao had said that Meghalaya is one of the pioneering States to develop and use technology for the convenience of the pensioners. He also informed that the data of the pensioners are not shared with any foreign-based server, and the pensioners can verify their srtatus from the convenience of their homes.

It may be mentioned here that the App is a safe, 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 help them in a long way to enable them to receive the pension without moving from their house.

The Frequency of Face Verification is once in six months or twice in a calendar year. The records are digitally available with the Treasury Office to automate the processing of the monthly Pension for pensioners. 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 which will be duly monitored.

The App can be downloaded from the Google Play store and very shortly it will be available in Apple apps store for iOS users.

Also Read: HITO (Hynñiewtrep Integrated Territorial Organization) seeks increase of age limit in public sector

Also Watch: