Govt creates central data pool to weed out ineligible, fake beneficiaries of schemes

Maharashtra's government has created a central data pool for 56.7 million citizens, identifying multiple scheme beneficiaries to reduce duplication and save costs.

MUMBAI: To bring all the beneficiaries availing of its different schemes under one umbrella and weed out duplication in benefits, the state government has prepared a golden or central data pool. This data, which was worked on for over a year, encompasses 168.5 million beneficiary accounts belonging to 56.7 million citizens.

Govt creates central data pool to weed out ineligible, fake beneficiaries of schemes

The golden data has brought to the government’s notice that most citizens are beneficiaries of multiple schemes, and has helped weed out 2.6 million from Ladki Bahin alone, saving the exchequer ₹3,000 crore in all. It will be unveiled on October 2 on a dedicated portal called Samanvay with a dedicated unique ID called MahaID, which will be given to all government scheme beneficiaries.

“Golden data refers to the integration of the beneficiaries of various government schemes,” said Parrag Jaiin Nainutia, principal secretary, information and technology. “The highest number of beneficiaries (75 million) are of the public distribution system (PDS) and 25 million of Ladki Bahin. The database, which was not integrated at the government level so far, has now been amalgamated and will help us when we launch new schemes for age- gender- and caste-specific beneficiaries in future. At the same time, citizens can learn from the portal what schemes they are eligible for.”

The state government implements over 50 schemes, including scholarships, stipends, the Namo Shetkari Sanman and the Sanjay Gandhi Niradhar Yojana among others.

The registration of beneficiaries of all schemes will now be made mandatory on the Samanvay portal. “Aadhar-based authentication of the recipients will help the government ensure that there is no duplication of beneficiaries in one scheme,” said Nainutia. “Also, while a citizen is allowed to take advantage of multiple schemes, they cannot avail of two schemes with cash benefits, for instance Ladki Bahin and Namo Kisan Samman Nidhi (NKSN), which many were taking. A female farmer, getting ₹1,000 from NKSN, will now get only ₹500 of the ₹1,500 payout from Ladki Bahin.

Another official from the department said that Aadhaar-based authentication of the beneficiaries would also help the government get all other details from the database with UIDAI. The income-tax department has also been requested for the PAN-linked data of the beneficiaries. The government has planned to link MHADA and CIDCO data at a later stage to ascertain the beneficiaries and weed out duplication related to housing beneficiaries.

“The golden data will help the government in its planning to launch new schemes, as it will have age, gender, caste, religion and income data readily available,” said the officer. “The data will also have pin code details to specify the area where the beneficiary lives.”