MONEYLIFE DIGITAL TEAM | 29/12/2015 05:15 PM | Follow
While the Finance Ministry is reviving its mission to mandatorily quote PAN for financial transactions, the RBI cannot think beyond Aadhaar for financial inclusion
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has come out with another strange idea for its financial inclusion drive. Instead of focussing on creating adequate infrastructure for the last-mile service delivery, the central bank thinks only government-to-person (G2P) cash transfer through Aadhaar number would make financial inclusion meaningful. This too without even bothering about the Supreme Court decision on not making Aadhaar mandatory for government schemes even as the Finance Ministry itself is issuing advertisements to quote permanent account number (PAN) for all major financial transactions. If the so-called unique identity is so sacred, why is the Finance Ministry placing emphasis on PAN cards for financial transactions? Does this also mean that financial transactions carried out by using Aadhaar are untraceable unlike where PAN is used?