KAKINADA, December 11, 2013
STAFF REPORTER
Making it clear that the ‘Aadhaar’ linked schemes were not intended to intrude into the personal lives of the public, Principal Secretary (Finance) to the State government P.V. Ramesh on Tuesday said that the objective behind making Aadhaar mandatory for all the benefits was only to prevent the misuse of the welfare schemes and programmes.
“There is not at all any trouble to the genuine beneficiaries with regard to the Aadhaar linkage. This linkage will help reducing the misuse of subsidies. The savings will be spent on the genuine beneficiaries again,” Mr. Ramesh explained to the officials during a review meeting on the Aadhaar-linked services at the Collectorate here.
Along with the Commissioner of Civil Supplies Sunil Sarma, Mr. Ramesh reviewed the Aadhaar seeding project which was explained in detail through a power-point presentation by Collector Neetu Prasad. Mr. Ramesh said that a subsidy of Rs.6,500 crore per annum was being provided to the 1.6 crore LPG consumers, while the quantum of subsidies given to the people below the poverty line through the civil supplies department was Rs.4,500 crore. “Even if we can save 10 per cent of the subsidy amount by removing the bogus accounts, a huge amount can be diverted to other welfare schemes,” he said.
Both the officials expressed satisfaction over the Aadhaar seeding programme and congratulated the district administration. Joint Collector R. Mutyala Raju and other officials were present.