Mysuru,:  Thousands of senior citizens are making a beeline at the Office of Regional Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) at Gayathripuram in city since Nov. 1 to submit their Digital Life Certificates.

Several senior citizens patiently wait for their turn to submit their credentials for Digital Life Certificates. Over 1,000 pensioners have been visiting PF Office daily since Nov. 1 to get Life Certificates. As it is a Regional Office, it handles customers from Mysuru, Mandya, Chamarajanagar and Kodagu. While offices and kiosks have been set up at all jurisdictional districts, pensioners still travel to Mysuru to obtain Digital Life Certificates.

There are over seven lakh PF customers and among them, there are more than 45,000 pensioners. All of them have to submit their digital life certificates for banks to continue to credit pension to their accounts.

Until 2017, physical life certificates had to be submitted which was a time consuming process and misplacement of hard copies of documents seemed to be one of the prime concerns. This digital service records the finger print (thumb) and iris data of an individual to avoid any discrepancies or misuse.

Dr. G. Shivakumar, Regional Provident Fund Commissioner, told Star of Mysore that over 800 pensioners have been visiting EPFO Office every day to get their Digital Life Certificate done. “Many senior citizens lose their certificate or misplace them. So, going digital has solved those problems and the process does not consume much time. It helps us keep a record too and duplication and fraud is completely ruled out as it is linked with their Aadhaar cards and bio-metric data,” he said.

ABOUT LIFE CERTIFICATE

Life Certificate or Jeevan Praman Patra is a biometric-enabled digital service for pensioners, which is linked with their Aadhaar card, Mobile number, Pension Payment Order number, Bank number and account number. The transition from Physical Life Certificate to Digital Life Certificate aims to eliminate duplication, forgery and fraud and make it a smooth and secure process.

After submitting their Digital Life Certificate, the pensioners annually need to go to the nearest EPFO office or a private online centre which has the facility of either finger print scanner or iris scanner and fulfil the criteria for receiving pension.

Employers’ Provident Fund subscribers whose mobile number, Aadhaar number and bank particulars have been linked with Universal Account Number (UAN) may obtain details of Provident Fund account balance and status by giving a missed call to: 01122901406. For more queries, contact Ph: 0821-2522486.

Physical Life Certificate is accepted only in rare cases where people have undergone a cataract surgery (which rules out iris biometric data) or where their fingerprints are eroded and biometric data cannot be taken.