Economic Survey 2013: Phase-II of UIDAI project aims to enrol 40 crore residents by 2014

NEW DELHI: The second phase of UIDAI project targets to enrol 40 crore residents by 2014, the Economic Survey 2012-13 said today.

"After successfully completing Phase I enrolments, the UIDAI is actively engaged in Phase II in which 40 crore residents are to be enrolled before end 2014," the Survey document said.

As of December 2012, 24.93 crore Aadhaar numbers have been generated and about 20 crore Aadhaar letters have been dispatched.

It said the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has also established infrastructure to generate 10 lakh Aadhaar numbers per day and process one crore authentication transactions a day.

"Apart from meeting targets related to enrolments, significant amount of effort has been spent on enabling service delivery of government schemes with Aadhaar online authentication and Aadhaar-enabled benefits transfers to bank accounts of beneficiaries," it added.

The Survey said the government has decided to initiate direct transfer of subsidy under various social schemes into beneficiaries' bank accounts.

"The transfer will be enabled through a payments bridge known as Aadhaar Payment Bridge ( APB) wherein funds can be transferred into any Aadhaar-enabled bank account on the basis of the Aadhaar number," it added.

This will eliminate chances of fraud/ error in the cash transfer process and the Aadhaar number will be linked to the beneficiary database so that ghosts/duplicates are weeded out from the beneficiary list.