SPARSH - Guess Her Age*

*Guess Her Age*

Dear Sir,

TSEWA ran a camp in the premises of ECHS Polyclinic to generate Annual Life Certificate (ALC) and also Digital Life Certificate (DLC) from 15 to 24 Nov 2022. Today 24 Nov 2022 was the last but the busiest and most satisfying day. Hony Capt M Narasimha Reddy, Jt Secy, TSEWA, Sri R Anand Kumar, Office Supdt and Self were busy till 1430 hrs.

We generated 78 ALCs and two DLCs.

Two ladies came to us with their dependents. One family pensioner, a widow of Other Rank came with her daughter. The daughter said since last four days they are going from bank to General Post office to Govt run computer centres known as E-SEWA or Mee-Sewa and to other private computer centres for getting ALC for her old mother. Everywhere they were told since her finger prints are erased, they cannot generate ALC. Finally when in the bank a good samaritan (Ex-Servicemen) advised them to go to ECHS polyclinic. The daughter pleaded with me " Sir, if you do not help us who else will and pension of my mother will stop. I am getting SMSs from SPARSH that her ALC or DLC has not yet come and her pension for Dec 2022 will be stopped". 

I examined her 10 fingers. Most of the finger prints are erased. She appeared to me of 80 years age. But when I asked her daughter what is her age, she told me her mother is just 60. Ladies due to hard work get their finger prints erased soon unlike men is what I learnt today.

We first tried to get biometric authentication but failed as our biometric device could not capture her finger prints. Then I tried with two apps I downloaded ie. Aadhaar Face Rd and Jeevan Pramaan Patra in my Android mobile (Samsung). I fortunately in first attempt could scan her face and finally gave her DLC.

At about 1330 hrs when we were about to close down for the day a tall sardar came to us almost gasping. He met me and told me " Sir, I have been running around various places for the last three days. My mother is a family pensioner and her finger prints are erased. We are unable to submit her life certificate. I am sorry when you are about to close". Then I told till we get your mother's DLC, we will not leave this place. Where is she?". He told me that she suffers from Arthritis and is unable to walk. So he rang up his brother to bring her in Autorikshaw. She came with her younger son and with great difficulty got down from the Auto rickshaw. Anybody will take pity on this poor lady Smt Satpal Kour Batra. She looked as if she is in her 90s. See her photo if you do not believe me.  I examined again all her 10 finger prints and tried with our biometric device which gave us 78 ALCs. But this time again the biometric device refused to show her face in the laptop screen. Then I tried to get her DLC. I failed five times as I keep getting the same message "You are duplicating data". Then I showed the message to her younger son who is a soft ware engineer. He told me he also downloaded the two apps for Face Recognition but somehow he is not able to scan her face. I think it is God who helped us. On my sixth attempt I was fortunate to get Do you want to scan the face. I thanked the Almighty and got her facing the son and captured her face. Then immediately I got the message from Jeevan Pramaan that her DLC is successfully registered. I took her DLC receipt and also certificate. Three are there in the photos attached. I did not found any difficulty with the first lady but there was lot of problem with the second lady Smt Satapal Kour Batra.

You have to see the happiness in their faces. Both asked us how much to pay. We said TSEWA membership is free and we do not take any donation from them as single ladies are our priority. Immediately both became members of TSEWA. Inspite of our dissuading them not to give even donations, they opened their wallets and gave us some money. They told what they donated is not even 10% of money they spent on auto rikshaw fares.

We will continue to provide the assistance of ALC / DLC from 25 to 30 Nov in our TSEWA office which we bought at Rs 55 lakhs thanks to donations we received from our members.

warm regards, 

Brig CS Vidyasagar (Retd)