India’s Department of Pension & Pensioners’ Welfare (DoPPW) is launching its most ambitious Digital Life Certificate (DLC) Campaign to date, with DLC Campaign 4.0 set to run throughout November 2025. The nationwide initiative will span all 1,600 districts and sub-divisional headquarters, aiming to facilitate the digital submission of life certificates for pensioners across the country, leveraging the country’s expanding digital identity infrastructure.
The campaign aims to collect 2 crore Digital Life Certificates, building on the success of DLC Campaign 3.0, which generated 1.62 crore digital life certificates, including over 50 lakh submissions through Face Authentication technology. The previous campaign included more than 1,900 camps across 800+ locations, with participation from banks, India Post Payments Bank (IPPB), Central Government departments, and Pensioners’ Welfare Associations.
Face Authentication technology, which works with India’s Aadhaar biometric identity system, remains a cornerstone of the initiative, simplifying the verification process for pensioners. The technology has already proven successful across various government services, including EPFO’s Universal Account Number generation and banking services. The campaign includes doorstep services for very senior and differently-abled pensioners, ensuring accessibility for all beneficiaries.
A high-level review meeting on September 9, 2025, led by Secretary (Pension) V. Srinivas, brought together senior representatives from 19 Pension Disbursing Banks and IPPB, which has been at the forefront of implementing facial authentication for digital banking across India, to coordinate implementation efforts.
The National Informatics Centre (NIC) DLC Portal will provide real-time monitoring and reporting capabilities for certificate submissions, using the same technological infrastructure that supports various other national digital identity initiatives. A comprehensive awareness campaign will precede the November camps, launching in October 2025 through multiple channels including SMS, WhatsApp, social media, banners, and local media.
Special provisions have been made for pensioners aged 80 years and above, allowing them to submit their life certificates in October 2025. Banks will begin providing DLC-related services to these super senior pensioners from October 1, 2025.
During the review meeting, banking executives confirmed their networks’ readiness to support the campaign through their branch infrastructure and doorstep service capabilities, including Amritesh Mohan from SBI, Rajesh Prasad from PNB, and Gurusharan Rai Bansal from IPPB.
The initiative continues India’s digital governance reforms, combining social protection measures with technology-enabled service delivery under the Digital India framework. The effort supports broader national initiatives to digitize government services, including recent mandates for e-KYC verification for ration cards and other digital identity initiatives. The campaign showcases multi-agency coordination between government departments, banking institutions, and pensioners’ associations to streamline the pension verification process.
Sources: Views Today, Press Information Bureau, The Economic Times, Policy Edge
