Jharkhand UID success on national stage

The Nandan Nilekani-headed Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) is set to replicate, at the national level, Jharkhand's success in disbursing money to people at their doorsteps.

Updated on: Feb 9, 2012, 02:17:22 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The Nandan Nilekani-headed Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) is set to replicate, at the national level, Jharkhand's success in disbursing money to people at their doorsteps.

On Tuesday, the UIDAI launched its unique identification or Aadhaar-based platform to link public entitlements to Aadhaar-linked bank accounts.

It would mean that governments would be able to directly deposit subsidies into the bank accounts of beneficiaries of schemes such as the Public Distribution System, old-age pension, scholarships and retirement benefits.

Every year, the government provides direct and indirect subsidies worth R3 lakh crore, half of which is direct. "The Aadhaar platform is ready to disburse the funds directly into people's bank accounts," Nilekani said, while clarifying that having an Aadhaar number will not mean "guarantee to an entitlement".

The authority undertook a pilot project in five blocks of Jharkhand to enable villagers to receive money from their accounts from banking correspondents at their doorsteps after online authentication of their finger prints. "The system worked seamlessly on most occasions," said UIDAI director general RS Sharma.

The authentication success rate was 85% in the first go. It increased to 98% with three attempts to record the finger print. "For them (whose authentication failed), we will have to fall back on other options. We are working on them," Sharma said.

About one million authentications per server in an hour were possible, Nilekani said.

Planning Commission deputy chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia outlined the government's plan to utilise the platform for cash transfer of fuel and food subsidies directly into bank accounts of the beneficiary.

Each state will have to set up a resident data hub to synergise its data with Aadhaar numbers. Sharma expected the systems to be rolled out by 2014.

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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