Lucknow. The Uttar Pradesh government has taken an important step to provide relief to elderly citizens. Now eligible persons will neither have to go through the complexities of the application process nor visit government offices to get pension. The government has approved a new system of automatically starting pension by identifying elderly citizens through the Family ID ‘One Family, One Identity’ system.

How to get the benefit of automatic pension?

According to the decision of the government, from the age details of the citizens available in the Family ID, the Social Welfare Department will find out which elderly people are about to complete the age of 60 years. The old age pension will automatically start from the month a person turns 60 years old. This decision will open the way for more than 8 lakh new elderly people to get pension. The government will bear an additional expenditure of about Rs 990 crore on this.

Identification of eligibility now in digital way

The Social Welfare Department will prepare a list of citizens who have completed 60 years in the next 90 days through Family ID. After this, consent will be taken by the department by contacting the concerned persons through digital mediums like SMS, WhatsApp, phone call.

If an elderly person is unable to give consent online himself then this task will be completed through Gram Panchayat Assistant, Common Service Center (CSC) or door-to-door service. Where consent is not obtained through digital means, departmental employees will contact them directly and complete the necessary process.

Approval process will be fast and transparent

After getting the consent, the scheme officer will confirm the eligibility and approve the pension through digital signature within 15 days. The acceptance letter will be sent to the beneficiary’s home and the payment will be made directly into the Aadhaar linked bank account. The elderly will receive information about every payment in the form of SMS alert. Also, a mobile app will be made available for the beneficiaries, in which the record of payment will be visible like a passbook.