Aasara pensioners in Telangana to soon get payments through facial recognition

The Telangana Postal Department plans to introduce facial recognition technology to disburse Aasara pensions to over 40 lakh beneficiaries. The move aims to address authentication issues faced by elderly pensioners and prevent fraud, with statewide rollout expected from August

Hyderabad: Facial recognition technology would soon facilitate the beneficiaries of the Aasara pension scheme across Telangana to receive their payments.

The Telangana Postal Department is set to launch a new initiative using facial recognition technology to disburse pension payments to over 40 lakh Aasara beneficiaries through post offices.

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So far, the postal department has been disbursing the pensions to the beneficiaries through biometric authentication using their Aadhaar card and thumb impressions.

Based on the feedback received from beat postmen, it was observed that most elderly people, aged between 60 and 80, were facing difficulties in processing biometric authentication due to the disappearance of ridges on their fingers.

As the beneficiaries were missing their monthly pension payments due to this, the postal officials decided to use facial recognition to streamline the disbursement process, ensure accurate identification of pensioners, and prevent fraudulent claims.

“The experiment of disbursing monthly pensions through facial recognition is in progress. The department is planning to launch this initiative in 4,986 branch post offices, 685 sub-post offices, and 32 head post offices across Telangana, likely from August onwards,” officials told Telangana Today.

A senior government official said there were nine types of pensions being disbursed to eligible beneficiaries — old-age pensions, widow pensions, pension for disabled people, weavers, toddy tappers, HIV patients, filarial patients, beedi workers, and single women. Over 1.50 crore beneficiaries were getting their pensions in the State.

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What is facial recognition?
It is a method to identify or confirm an individual’s identity using their face through a camera. These systems can be employed to identify people in real-time