Sat Mar 17 2012, 03:44 hrs
Pointing out that the UID-Aadhar platform will help in better targeting of the subsidy system, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said it is now ready to support payments for the flagship Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, old age, widow and disability pensions, and scholarships directly to the beneficiary accounts in selected areas.
He said enrolments in the Aadhar system have already crossed 20 crore and the UID numbers generated up to date have crossed 14 crore. He proposed to allocate Rs 14,000 crore to scale up operations and complete another 40 crore enrolments starting April 1 in addition to the 20 crore people already enrolled.
The recommendations of the task force headed by Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) chief Nandan Nilekani on IT strategy for direct transfer of subsidy have been accepted by the government, said Mukherjee.
Based on these, a mobile-based Fertiliser Management System has been designed to provide end-to-end information on the movement of fertilisers and subsidies, from the manufacturer to the retail level to be rolled out nationwide during 2012. Direct transfer of subsidy to the retailer, and eventually to the farmer will be implemented in subsequent phases, he said.
The step will benefit 12 crore farmer families, while reducing expenditure on subsidies by curtailing misuse of fertilisers. Saying that the three public sector oil marketing companies have launched LPG transparency portals to reduce leakage, Mukherjee said a pilot project for selling LPG at market price and reimbursement of subsidy directly into the beneficiary’s bank account is on in Mysore.
A similar pilot project on direct transfer of subsidy for kerosene has been initiated in Alwar district of Rajasthan.
The Aadhar platform has also been successfully used to validate PDS ration cards in Jharkhand.
These pilot projects show that substantial economies in subsidy outgo can be achieved by the use of Aadhar platform.
It will be the Centre’s endeavour to scale up and roll out these Aadhar enabled payments for various government schemes in at least 50 selected districts within the next six months, the Finance Minister added.