Tuesday, February 26, 2013

3076 - Aadhaar-linked salary scheme a no-show as yet




    Sunday, 24 February 2013 21:37 
    Mukesh Ranjan | Ranchi 

The ambitious Aadhaar-linked payment project for State Government employees and pensioners in Jharkhand seems to be in limbo, given the fact that enrolment of only 50 per cent of employees has been completed so far, after crossing the October 31 deadline.

In August 2012, the Government had issued a circular directing all departments to put in place the Aadhaar payment system and ensure Aadhaar registration of employees and pensioners.

“We were directed to set up camps at all treasuries in the State, which we had done. Those who came were enrolled. When people stopped coming to us, we closed those camps,” said the ADG of media, information, education and communication of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI)-Ranchi PK Upadhyaya.

“Progress is very slow and the directive could not be implemented,” said IT Secretary NN Sinha. “We had expected that the enrolment agencies will increase their numbers covering everyone in the Government, which could not be done,” he added.

However, highly-placed Government officials say that in a mid-project review meeting, it was decided to put the project on the backburner for now, as one school of thought was that State Government employees are already getting their salaries through bank accounts, where there is minimum chance of forgery.

The directive had been issued on the initiation of the then Chief Minister Arjun Munda, who wanted to bring all State Government employees under the UID ambit.

According to Government data, there are 2.25 lakh State Government employees and merely half of them have been enrolled so far for the Aadhaar numbers.