20.48 Lakh Defence Pensioners File Digital Life Certificates

More than 20.48 lakh defence pensioners — roughly 2 million people — had submitted digital life certificates by November 11, 2026, just eleven days into India's Nationwide Digital Life Certificate Campaign 5.0. That's the highest contribution of any participating government department, and the campaign runs the full month, through November 30.

The Controller General of Defence Accounts (CGDA), under the Ministry of Defence, is running the drive in coordination with the Department of Pension & Pensioners' Welfare. The scale of the machine behind it is considerable.

• 194 SPARSH Service Centres, fully equipped to help pensioners generate certificates and access the SPARSH pension platform
• 4.63 lakh Common Service Centres participating nationwide
• 13 partner banks, including India Post Payments Bank
• 29 nodal officers coordinating submission
• Roughly 80 outreach programmes, including a Mega Digital Life Certificate Camp in Kochi on November 23, 2026

Why face authentication is the story here

The campaign's centrepiece is Aadhaar-based Face Authentication Technology, delivered through the Jeevan Pramaan portal and its mobile app. More than 80% of certificates in this campaign are generated using Face ID — pensioners can authenticate with a smartphone alone, no external biometric device required.

That detail matters more than it might seem. Fingerprint readers fail often for super-senior citizens, whose prints fade with age. Face authentication removes that friction entirely. It also cuts travel for differently-abled veterans and pensioners with mobility limitations, who otherwise face a physical trip to prove they're alive.

The Defence Accounts Department frames the push as more than convenience: it wants pensioners and their families to adopt the digital workflow for future submissions, building self-reliance so next year's cycle needs no assistance.

What does this change for pensioners?

Practically, it collapses an annual bureaucratic chore. A life certificate historically meant queues, paperwork and a biometric device. Now, for most, it means a phone and a face. The department's stated commitment — delivering the "Right Pension to the Right Pensioner at the Right Time" — depends on that annual proof, and the November campaign is when the bulk of it lands.

The numbers show momentum is holding. During the previous campaign in November 2025, the Defence Accounts Department generated over 20.94 lakh digital life certificates through its network of SPARSH Centres, Common Service Centres and partner banks. This year's cohort has nearly matched that total in under two weeks.

The wider SPARSH footprint

SPARSH itself — the Defence Accounts Department's pension platform — keeps growing. As of October 2026:

• 35.11 lakh defence pensioners registered
• 301 SPARSH Outreach Programmes conducted
• 204 Raksha Pension Samadhan Aayojans held, resolving more than 8,000 grievances promptly

That grievance figure is the quiet tell: the department isn't only digitising submission, it's using the same network to clear backlogs of pension disputes face-to-face.

For any defence pensioner or family pensioner who hasn't yet filed, the department's advice is simple: visit the nearest SPARSH Service Centre, partner bank or outreach programme before November 30 closes the window.

A month-long campaign, two million certificates, and a smartphone camera doing the work a fingerprint scanner used to.