Aadhaar Bill passage a landmark development: Arvind Panagariya

NEW DELHI:Terming the Aadhaar Bill passage as a landmark development, NITI Aayog Vice-Chairman Arvind Panagariya today said the unique identification number will be instrumental in giving people access to benefits and subsidies under the Public Distribution System (PDS).

"I think it was a landmark thing that has happened and I do see, now going forward, lot of use of the Aadhaar instrumentality in the disbursement of the benefits," Panagariya told reporters on the sidelines of the Advancing Asia Conference jointly organised by India and IMF here.

The Lok Sabha yesterday passed the Aadhaar Bill, providing statutory backing to the unique identification number for transferring government subsidies and benefits, as a money bill after government overruled opposition objections.

Panagariya said Aadhaar is going to be an instrumentality for the benefits under the Public Distribution System (PDS) and other benefits.

"I think there is also accompanying announcement in the Budget of the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) for example for fertiliser. it is a pilot right now, that is a complicated one to administer. But in the PDS and in the other benefits, Aadhaar is going to be an instrumentality now," he said.

In the Union Budget, the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley proposed to introduce DBT on a pilot basis for fertiliser in a few districts across the country, with a view to improving the quality of service delivery to farmers.

In reply to a question on NITI Aayog's role in the strategic sale in the central public sector enterprises (CPSEs), Panagariya said the methodologies are yet to be worked out and it will start working on it soon.

"Not yet on methodologies, we certainly get to work on this. We will very soon will work it out, what criterion will it use and then beyond that. This particular one announced in the Budget is about the strategic sale, which is basically transfer of ownership," he said.

On the rising NPAs in the banking system and the actions being taken to recover the dues, he said the law will apply even handedly as well as the government is taking host of steps to curb it.

"Just that finger has been pointed out at one that doesn't mean the others are off, though. Law will apply even handedly ...variety of options have been discussed in the government even what we call the bad banks, ARCs etc," Panagariya said.