Aadhaar to be linked to all social sector schemes from April 2015

In order to extend the use of Aadhaar number to various social welfare schemes, government has asked the Unique Identification Authority and the National Population Register to complete the enrolment of the entire population by March.

Updated on: Nov 7, 2014, 01:18:37 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

To link unique identification or Aadhaar number with disbursement of welfare funds from the next financial year, the Prime Minister’s Office has asked the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) and National Population Register (NPR) to advance enrollment of all eligible residents from June to March 2015.

The move is part of the bigger government agenda to plug leakages in the social sector schemes aimed at better fiscal management. It is also aimed at incorporating the concept of Aadhaar based direct benefit transfer for all government expenditure worth Rs 3,00,000 crore every year from the next fiscal, which would bring paradigm shift in administering of the poorly managed government schemes.

A Planning Commission study in 2012 had shown that Aadhaar can save public money of Rs 50,000 crore in three years once all 1.2 crore eligible residents were enrolled with an annual rate of return of 52% in the investment. The study had said that Aadhaar would result in substantial benefits if it was integrated with government schemes such as Public Distribution System, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and disbursement on fertilizer and cooking gas subsidies.

Fraud or duplication is not possible under the Aadhaar system where authentication of one’s number and demographic details are possible by a click of a mouse. “It is anytime, anywhere online authentication system that enables checking fraud in less than 10 seconds,” a UIDAI official said.

The government sources said the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision was recently announced at a meeting of the PMO officials with UIDAI, NPR and other ministry officials. Directions were also issued to speed up seeding of Aadhaar number in the bank accounts of existing beneficiaries under different government schemes, sources said.

“Linking Aadhaar with schemes will help us in linking fund flow to the States and the Central ministries with their outcome based performance as outlined by the Prime Minister at a meeting with all secretaries of the government of India,” a senior government functionary said, adding that Aadhaar will make correct assessment possible.

The UIDAI has generated Aadhaar number for 700 million residents and have covered 90% population in nine states including Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Delhi and Himachal Pradesh. About 16 states have an average coverage of more than 70%. In four states assigned to UIDAI recently --- Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Uttarakhand and Chhattisgarh --- about 26% of the target population has been enrolled.

“We are enrolling over a million people every day and would be enhancing our capacity to enroll 1.5 million people a day shortly. We are confident to meet the new target set up by the Prime Minister’s Office,” said a senior UIDAI official.

The government has provided fresh impetus to Aadhaar by linking it to various schemes and making Aadhaar based attendance in government offices mandatory. The real impact of Aadhaar would be visible from the next financial year when the government plans to link it with all social sector schemes.

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

Follow India news real-time updates and the latest news covered on Hindustan Times, featuring today's critical updates on Sonam Wangchuk LIVE and more across India.