Govt sets Aadhar rolling

With about 20 crore people already enrolled, the government has set into motion the process to make Unique Identification (UID) or Aadhaar number integral part of major government schemes.

Updated on: May 15, 2012, 21:46:40 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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With about 20 crore people already enrolled, the government has set into motion the process to make Unique Identification (UID) or Aadhaar number integral part of major government schemes.

Nandan Nilekani led Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has got mandate to provide an Aadhaar number to all 1.2 billion residents, of which about 200 million have been covered. The UIDAI has also successfully run pilot on Aadhaar based authentication services and transfer of funds to Aadhaar based bank accounts.

Taking the initiative into implementation stage, the Planning Commission this week issued an internal direction that different divisions will ensure integration of Aadhaar in delivery of schemes.

“The concerns divisions in the Planning Commission would look at the integration of Aadhaar number in delivery of services envisaged under the project if it is an individual beneficiary oriented project,” the office memorandum issued on Monday said.

The Central government runs several individual benefit schemes such as Integrated Child Development Scheme, Mahatma Gandhi National Employment Guarantee scheme, scholarship schemes, public distribution system, old age pension and schemes in health sector.

The total budget of these schemes was around Rs two lakh crore in the budget of 2012-13.

Not just the Central schemes, the panel want the state governments to gear up for Aadhaar roll-out, important to plug leakages in implementation of the government schemes.

The plan panel has also asked its state plan divisions to include Aadhaar in the plan proposals for different states. “It has been decided that the background paper would include a write-up on roll out and implementation of Aadhaar in the concerned state,” the circular read.

For implementation of Aadhaar, the state governments are required to create a single database of all beneficiaries and then link it with an Aadhaar number. Officials say many state governments have expressed inability to set up the data base citing financial constraints. As a way-out, the UIDAI has offered help to integrate the existing database of beneficiaries into one.

The circular sets the ball rolling for making Aadhaar applicable to all government schemes by end of 2013. All Indian residents are expected to get Aadhaar by middle of 2013.

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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