New Delhi, Nov 12 (PTI) Over 20 lakh defence pensioners have successfully submitted digital life certificates (DLCs), the highest contribution among all participating departments, in a month-long campaign being conducted across the country starting November 1.
The initiative aims to facilitate seamless, hassle-free submission of DLCs for defence pensioners and family pensioners through advanced technology-enabled solutions, the defence ministry said.
"A key priority is ensuring that elderly, super-senior and differently-abled pensioners complete their annual identification conveniently without procedural hardships," it said in a statement.
The Controller General of Defence Accounts (CGDA) under the defence ministry has rolled out an extensive outreach initiative as part of the nationwide Digital Life Certificate (DLC) Campaign 5.0.
Coordinated by the Department of Pension & Pensioners' Welfare (DoP&PW), Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, the campaign is being conducted across the country from November 1 to 30, it said.
"As of November 11, over 20.48 lakh defence pensioners have successfully submitted DLCs, the highest contribution among all participating departments," the statement said.
To ensure widespread physical outreach and ground-level support, the Defence Accounts Department (DAD) has mobilised 194 SPARSH Service Centres (SSCs) fully equipped to assist pensioners in generating DLCs and availing the System for Pension Administration-Raksha (SPARSH) platform services; 4.63 lakh Common Service Centres (CSCs), 13 partner banks/ IPPB and 29 nodal officers to facilitate pensioners to generate DLCs, it said.
SPARSH is a digital platform for defence pensioners.
Around 80 outreach programmes are being conducted across the country.
A focal point of campaign 5.0 is promoting Aadhaar-based face authentication technology via the Jeevan Pramaan portal and mobile application, with more than 80 per cent of the digital life certificates being generated through face IDs.
This facility allows pensioners to authenticate their life certificate using a smartphone, eliminating the need for external biometric hardware, it added.
The Defence Accounts Department has consistently driven high adoption in nationwide digital governance initiatives. During DLC Campaign 4.0 in November 2025, the DAD generated over 20.94 lakh DLCs through its pan-India network of SPARSH Service Centres, Common Service Centres and partner banks.
The outreach under SPARSH has also expanded significantly, with 35.11 lakh defence pensioners onboarded as of October 2026, supported by 301 SPARSH Outreach Programmes and 204 Raksha Pension Samadhan Aayojans resolving over 8,000 grievances on the spot, it said.
