Aadhaar to cross 100 crore mark, may help redesign government schemes

NEW DELHI: After the Parliament passed a legislation giving sanctity to the government's ambitious and much-controversial unique identity project, Aadhaar is set to cross another major milestone of touching the 100 crore mark by Monday.

In an interview, director general of the Unique Identification Authority of India ( UIDAI), AB Pandey told ET that with the Act in place, the government will not only be able to streamline existing subsidies but can also come up with new schemes and sub-schemes that are more targeted, as Aadhaar allows for new ways of beneficiary verification and identification, which were not possible earlier.

The Authority will soon get a chairperson, a position that has been vacant since Nandan Nilekani, founder chairman of UIDAI, left office in 2014 to contest elections.

"A chairperson will be appointed within the next 4-5 days," said Pandey without divulging details about who is being considered for the position. The Aadhaar Bill, which was passed in the Parliament as a Money Bill in March, mandates the appointment of a chairman of the authority.

In an earlier ruling, the Supreme Court had restricted the use of Aadhaar to just a handful of government schemes, but after the bill has been passed, the government is now in the process of restarting linkage with schemes that were halted earlier. Work is also on to identify existing schemes of the government that can be linked to Aadhaar and brought on the Direct Benefits Transfer platform.

Pandey said that while work is ongoing on this front, in the future, the linkage with Aadhaar could give birth to various new kinds o schemes. He added that using the UID number, the government could carry out authentication in new ways for beneficiaries, and customise and modify schemes accordingly, so that "benefits reach directly to the people."

He gave an example of the new mandate by the government to withdraw cooking gas subsidy for those earning over Rs 10 lakh annually . "This is a new form of the LPG subsidy, which has been made possible because of Aadhaar," he said.

Pandey also added that linking of all welfare payments with Aadhaar will give the government a new kind of data and enable it to design schemes for different target audiences within the same scheme. For instance, the government may decide to increase old age pension for a particular person who doesn't have a family after looking at his PDS data, which is also linked to the Aadhaar platform.

"Several new possibilities, which we have not even thought of right now, will emerge," said Pandey.

ET had reported earlier that all Central government schemes in volving transfer of benefits in cash or kind are expected to transition to the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) platform from April. All Central government payments will soon be on the electronic platform.

Ministries are geared up after directions were issued last month for the transition of all Central schemes to the DBT platform, which was to be achieved by April 1. Many ministries have already identified such schemes and fasttracked their transition since.

The scope of DBT now stands enlarged to cover all central sector schemes and centrally-sponsored schemes across all ministries and departments.