Govt. of Rajasthan : Project AID

Pension department of Rajasthan government dispatches pension to the

pensioners under various schemes/categories such as

widow/physically-handicapped/old-age pension through postal money-orders or

direct-credit into bank accounts on a monthly basis. Most of these pensioners

are located in rural areas and do not have a definite means of knowing when the

dispatch/credit was made.

Thereby, they remained clueless and kept waiting for the pension to reach

them. At times, they even did not know that the pension has been credited into

their bank account and kept waiting for the money-order to reach them.

Biggest challenge faced was the choice of the communication medium. Sending

intimation by letters was prone to same issues as a money-order, and also since

many of the beneficiaries were illiterate, they would again depend on someone

else to read them. Eventually it was decided to use telephones and mobiles for

reaching pensioners.

To enhance transparency in the process and empower the pension beneficiaries

with timely information, the department decided to provide personalized

information to the pensioners about their pension sanction and credits on a

monthly basis.

Project for Automatic Information Dissemination (AID) was conceptualized that

would dial each pension beneficiary who had a mobile or telephone number listed

with the department and play a message in hindi stating the recipient's name and

relevant pension details. This process would be repeated each month.