Aadhaar platform for govt welfare expenses

Not just common people but even bureaucrats will heave a sigh of relief once the government spends money through Unique Identification (UID) or Aadhaar Payment Bridge. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Feb 3, 2013, 23:14:56 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Not just common people but even bureaucrats will heave a sigh of relief once the government spends money through Unique Identification (UID) or Aadhaar Payment Bridge.

Babus will not have to keep track of every penny the government spends. That job will be done by Aadhaar platform which would monitor every paisa the government provides through the direct benefit transfer (DBT) regime.

In the existing system, babus are required to generate utilisation certificate for the money they spent under different government schemes. The certificates are indicative that the money has been spent for the purpose for which it was provided.

And, generating the certificate means file work from babus working in the field and those in the secretariats. The file moves from the lowest level in the government office to the money disbursing offices.

All that would be history once Aadhaar enabled DBT becomes applicable to all government schemes. Online Aadhaar would authenticate that the money has been deposited into the bank account of the beneficiary. This would replace the paper utilisation certificate.

The realisation that Aadhaar can reduce huge paperwork has finally dawned on the government. The Prime Minister's Office has asked the Planning Commission to bring a Cabinet note to amend the rules for transaction of government business to replace the requirement of utilisation certificate with online Aadhaar authentication in schemes where direct benefit transfer is made applicable.

From January 1, 2013, the government implemented the direct transfer to seven fully centrally funded government schemes and targets to put all government expenditure for welfare on Aadhaar platform.

At a recent meeting, principal secretary to PM, Pulok Chatterji said Aadhaar would help the central government to transfer money directly into bank accounts of beneficiaries and therefore continuing the system of generating utilisation certificates would be of use now.

In Aadhaar, before transfer of a single paisa a certificate is generated giving details about the beneficiary making the system theoretically fool-proof from misuse of government funds.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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