737 million Aadhaar enrolments done till mid-July: Inderjit Singh

As many as 73.71 crore Aadhaar enrolments have been done till mid-July, with 8.45 crore rejections because of various reasons.

"As on July 14, 2014, a total of 73.71 crore enrolments have been carried out by various agencies of which, 8.45 crore enrolments were rejected for a variety of reasons and 64.05 Aadhaars have been generated by UIDAI," Minister of State (Independent) for Planning Rao Inderjit Singh said in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha.

He said the government has spent Rs 4,620.61 crore since the inception of the project.

Singh said Unique Identification (UID) is a continuing central sector scheme of the government executed by the Unique Identification Authority of India.

UIDAI is an attached office of the Planning Commission with the mandate to issue a unique identity number - Aadhaar - to every resident of the country.

It follows the multi-registrar model for enrolment that includes state government departments and others agencies such as banks and financial institutions.

In reply to a separate question, the minister said that Aadhaar project is primarily a development initiative and it does not bestow any rights, entitlements or claims to citizenship on the Aadhaar number holder.

Replying to questions on integrity of data collection and security related issues, he said the Ministry of Home Affairs had raised the matter, so an inter-ministerial coordination has been set up to address such concerns.

On January 30, the UPA government had suspended Aadhaar linked direct benefit transfer for LPG (DBTL) scheme, where consumers in 289 districts in 18 states got cash of Rs 435 per month in their bank accounts for purchasing cooking gas at market rate.