NEW DELHI, March 7, 2016
Somesh Jha
Even as the Aadhaar Bill is to be passed in the Lok Sabha, the government has begun approving new subsidies to be delivered using the biometrics-backed Unique Identification or UID number.
Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya has approved a scheme to offer higher housing subsidies to 75 lakh beedi workers and miners working in non-coal mines using Aadhaar, senior government officials said. However, the UID Authority of India or UIDAI would find it difficult to capture their fingerprints owing to the nature of their work, according to its own biometric authentication standards.
The minister approved the proposal on Thursday, the same day that Finance Minister Arun Jaitley tabled the Aadhaar (Target Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Bill, 2016 in Lok Sabha. The Bill, tabled as a Money Bill (not required Rajya Sabha’s approval) is aimed to give legal backing for transferring all government subsidies using Aadhaar.
“The Labour Minister has approved a dynamic and revolutionary scheme in which housing subsidy will be given through Aadhaar so that subsidy reaches the targeted beneficiary,” said a senior ministry official.
Under the Revised Integrated Housing Scheme of 2016, the Labour Ministry will give Rs 1.5 lakh as subsidy through direct benefit transfer, up from Rs 40,000 at present, to beedi and non-mine workers to build a house on their own land. The house will have earthquake-resistance structure, two rooms, kitchen, bathroom and closet area for drying clothes.
The move comes despite the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) itself suggesting construction and mining workers be put in list of exceptions to whom the Aadhaar system may not apply.
In a detailed document titled ‘Aadhaar Authentication Framework’, the UIDAI had said that people doing hard manual labour such as construction workers or mining workers may be treated as “exceptions” in the Aadhaar system as they have “all of their fingers in extremely poor condition with respect to fingerprint quality.”
“There will always be a set of population who will be temporarily or permanently excluded from a specific biometric system. We can term this set of people as ‘outliers’,” the UIDAI said, adding that in such cases, alternate biometrics could be used such as the use of iris scan.
“Direct transfer mechanism has a lot of benefits. It is true that the government may find it difficult to implement it in the initial stages but it is the appropriate long-term solution to target the beneficiaries accurately,” said Alakh N Sharma, Professor and Director at Delhi-based Institute for Human Development.
HOUSING SCHEME FOR WORKERS
The new Housing Scheme of the Labour Ministry will give assistance to workers having their own land with carpet area (the part enclosed within the wall) of at least 30 square meters. The subsidy amount will be released in three installments: first amount of Rs 37,500 will be given as advance, second Rs 90,000 after the construction of house reaches lintel level and third installment of Rs 22,500 after completion of construction work. The worker can give additional contribution at his or her own will.
Also, for the first time, the government may give Rs 1.5 lakh as an upfront amount to those workers who want to secure a bank loan to build house.
“The subsidy amount of Rs 1.5 lakh could be used as margin money to help them secure bank loans for building a house. Also, the new housing scheme will become a part of Prime Minister’s ‘Housing for All’ project,” the labour ministry official said. In 2014-15, the government constructed 16,552 houses for beedi and non-coal mine workers.
The ‘Housing for All’ project, which gives Rs 1 lakh as Central grant for a house under the slum rehabilitation programme and Rs 1.5 lakh to economically weaker sections category households, aims to build 2 crore houses in five phases till 2021-22.
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House will have:
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Earthquake-resistance structure, 2 Rooms, Kitchen, Bathroom, Closet for drying clothes
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