12 APR, 2012, 02.15AM IST, VIKAS DHOOT & M RAJSHEKHAR,ET BUREAU
NEW DELHI: A committee of MPs has questioned the budget's endorsement of the Aadhaar project despite the panel's rejection of a draft law which sought to give it legal backing.
The 31-member Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance, chaired by former finance minister Yashwant Sinha, has asked the government to explain the proposed increase in budgetary allocations to the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) steered by Infosys founder Nandan Nilekani.
"We have asked the Planning Commission to explain the hike in allocations (to the project), while discussing their demand for grants (for 2012-13) in the standing committee on finance," Sinha told ET.
Committee member and Lok Sabha MP Gurudas Dasgupta said there has been no reply to the panel's queries from the government. "We will be making an observation about this in our final report when we table it in Parliament," he said.
The project's budget comes under the ministry of planning, which has decided to raise this year's budgetary support to Aadhaar by nearly 50% to Rs 1,758 crore from Rs 1,200 crore in 2011-12. The project has so far enrolled 200 million residents and generated unique Aadhaar numbers for 14 million. The standing committee's report on the ministry's demand for grants will be tabled when Parliament reconvenes to approve the Finance Bill.
"I propose to allocate adequate funds to complete another 40 crore enrolments starting from April 1, 2012," finance minister Pranab Mukherjee had said in his Budget speech, which made 11 references to the Aadhaar project. These included a promise to issue identity cards with Aadhaar numbers to all residents above 18 years of age and drive welfare measures like fertilizer subsidies, pensions, employment guarantee payments and public distribution system benefits through the Aadhaar platform.
"The Aadhaar number has been successfully used to validate PDS ration cards in Jharkhand," Mukherjee had said.
"These pilot projects show that substantial economies in subsidy outgo can be achieved by the use of Aadhaar platform. 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 in the next six months."
The government's enthusiasm about Aadhaar, however, runs contrary to the Parliamentary panel's observations on the UID project in its report on the National Identification Authority of India Bill tabled in December 2011.
Describing the project as one "conceptualized with no clarity of purpose", the committee had faulted the programme on grounds ranging from high costs, no proven efficacy and privacy concerns.
"Questions about the project's finances have been repeatedly raised in the committee meetings," Dasgupta said. "On its demand for grants, we have asked the government why more money is being spent on a project that is redundant and serves no purpose."
ET's email questionnaire sent to Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia and UIDAI chairman Nandan Nilekani did not elicit any response.
The Standing Committee on Finance examines matters related to the ministries of finance, corporate affairs, planning as well as statistics and programme implementation. As per parliamentary procedures, the committee scrutinizes the fund allocations to these ministries proposed in the Budget.
The committee's reports are not binding on the government. But during the debate on Budget provisions, any MP can initiate a 'cut motion' to scale back specific spending proposals of the government.
