Minister asks secretaries of key line ministries to scramble to assess state of preparedness at ground level
Surabhi Agarwal | Aman Malik
First Published: Thu, Dec 20 2012. 11 53 PM IST
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh chaired a high-level meeting that decided to have the state of preparedness assessed at the ground level. Photo: Ramesh Pathania/Mint
Updated: Fri, Dec 21 2012. 12 57 AM IST
New Delhi: In a tacit admission that the government may be struggling to meet its deadline for rolling out Aadhaar-based cash transfers in over 43 districts within the next 10 days, the Prime Minister has asked for secretaries of key line ministries to scramble to assess the state of preparedness at the ground level.
The decision was taken at a high-level meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and attended by senior cabinet ministersP. Chidambaram, Jairam Ramesh and Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) chairman Nandan Nilekani, among others. A person familiar with the developments, who did not want to be identified, disclosed that some ministers were emphatic that the scheme should not be rolled out unless the supporting infrastructure was in place.
Ahead of the 2014 general election, the ruling Congress-led United Progressive Alliance has made cash transfers of government subsidies and welfare payments such as pensions and scholarships linked to the Aadhaar number its key electoral plank. It said it would roll out these payments across 34 schemes directly into Aadhaar-linked bank accounts of beneficiaries in 43 districts from 1 January and in 18 statesfrom 1 April.
However, feedback from the ongoing pilot programmes and an assessment of the logistics involved is forcing a rethink on the initial deadline.
“The government has said cash transfers will be rolled out from 1 January, but to expect that payments in all the 34 shortlisted schemes across 43 districts will be rolled out from that date itself will be expecting too much,” said a government official involved with the project.
Asking not to be identified, the official added that there is a lot of groundwork that needs to be done—Aadhaar numbers have to be issued, beneficiary databases have to be digitized and linked to Aadhaar, and bank accounts have to be opened.
“This is the front end, which is most time consuming; the back-end infrastructure is ready. The state governments have been given a crash course to understand what an Aadhaar-linked payment system is or how direct cash transfers will work, and they have been given a month’s time to build the processes, which is where the challenges are emerging,” the official said. He said that even if the timelines are too aggressive, it is important to get the government machinery into action. “Even if the roll-out doesn’t happen in all the schemes across all the districts, at least they will start in some, and sooner or later everybody will catch up,” he added.
Discovering problems is “why this exercise is being undertaken”, said a second government official who also did not want to be identified.
This person added that the secretaries of key line ministries are expected to visit districts and direct collectors to “set matters in order”. The ministries of rural development, human resource development, social justice and empowerment, minority affairs, women and child development, health and family welfare, and labour have schemes that are part of the 34 that have to start using cash transfers in 43 districts from 1 January.
The last meeting of the executive committee on cash transfers chaired by Pulok Chatterji, principal secretary to the Prime Minister, had recommended that secretaries of implementing ministries may consider visits to a neighbouring district to familiarize themselves with the ground realities and processes that will be needed for the roll-out to be effective.
“At the field level, for ministries implementing schemes, firming up and digitizing databases, completing enrolment for Aadhaar by all beneficiaries, ensuring bank accounts for all beneficiaries, ensuring that Aadhaar numbers are entered into bank account databases and beneficiary databases will be the primary activity in the coming few weeks. This has to be addressed on a war footing,” a statement released by the Press Information Bureau had said.
It had added that the best approach may be to organize camps to speed up the process of enrolment and opening bank accounts.