|
The government today said it will extend the UIDAI's Aadhaar enabled payments for various government schemes in at least 50 selected districts within the next six months.
Under the Unique Identification Authority of India's Aadhaar enabled payments, the subsidies are directly transferred into the beneficiaries' bank accounts.
"It will be our endeavour to scale up and roll out these Aadhaar enabled payments for various government schemes in at least 50 selected districts within the next six months," Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said while presenting the Budget for 2012-13 in Lok Sabha.
The minister informed the House that the Aadhaar platform is now ready to support the payments of MGNREGA; old age, widow and disability pensions; and scholarships directly to the beneficiary accounts in selected areas.
So far pilot projects on Aadhaar-enabled e-payment system are being carried out in the areas of LPG, kerosene, MGNREGS and fertilisers.
Currently, a pilot project is on to make payment for MGNREGA in Jharkhand besides a LPG distribution in Mysore (Karnataka) and opening of bank accounts in Tumkur (Karnataka).
There is a similar project on direct transfer of subsidy for kerosene into the bank accounts of beneficiaries which has been initiated in Alwar district of Rajasthan.
Mukherjee said, "These pilot projects show that substantial economies in subsidy outgo can be achieved by the use of Aadhaar platform."
The finance minister also proposed to allocate required funds to cover an additional 40 crore residents under the Aadhar project in the budget.
Mukherjee also said that a system is being created for electronic transfer of subsidies under the Public Distribution System using Aadhaar platform. It will become operational by December 2012.
The Task Force on Aaadhar-Enabled Unified Payment Infrastructure, headed by UIDAI-Chairman Nandan Nilekani, has recommended that over a period of time, all government payments over Rs 1,000 be made electronically.
It recommended hiring 10 lakh business correspondents to facilitate banking and financial services in rural areas which do not have access to full-fledged banking services.
The UIDAI is engaged in providing residents a Unique Identification number (called Aadhaar) linked to the resident's demographic and biometric information.
The enrolments into the Aadhaar system have crossed 20 crore and the UID numbers generated so far have crossed 14 crore.
FILED ON: MAR 16, 2012 22:49 IST
|