UIDAI's enrolment mandate expanded beyond 600 mn

The agency to enroll in four additional states, move intended to fast-track DBT

The government on Tuesday approved a proposal to expand the current mandate of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to enrol beyond 600 million residents. The Cabinet Committee on UID decided that UIDAI would carry out the enrolment exercise in four states, which were previously allocated to the Registrar General of India (RGI) that has been running the National Population Register project.

In Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Uttarakhand, both UIDAI and RGI will enrol residents and “work out modalities to ensure that there is no duplication in collection of biometrics,” said a government statement.

UIDAI will have to seek additional funds from the finance ministry for the new mandate, the statement added.

GREATER REACH

• UIDAI's mandate expanded beyond enrolling 600 million residents
• Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Uttarakhand added to UIDAI which were earlier under home ministry's NPR
• In January 2012, the Cabinet had worked out a compromise between UIDAI and NPR by allocating 18 states to Aadhaar and the remaining to NPR
• UIDAI will have to seek additional funds from the Ministry of Finance for the new mandate
• So far, 45o million people have been enrolled exclusively by UIDAI while overall 570 million numbers have been generated
• The move is intended to fast-track direct benefits transfers for 28 schemes and cooking gas

Business Standard had reported this in its report dated January 29, and had said this decision was taken due to slow progress of NPR in these states, which was impeding the expansion of the Direct Benefits transfer (DBT) scheme that was linked to Aadhaar.

This comes exactly two years after a bitter turf war between the Nandan Nilekani-led UIDAI and the Union home ministry's National Population Register (NPR) over duplication of data. In January 2012, the Cabinet had worked out a compromise between the two agencies by allocating 18 states and Union Territories to Aadhaar, while in the remaining areas enrolments were to be carried out exclusively by RGI.

UIDAI has so far enrolled about 450 million people and generated 570 million numbers.

The statement said a major constraint in further expansion of the DBT and DBT in cooking gas programmes in selected districts relates to lower levels of Aadhaar saturation in the remaining States and UTs.

“An urgent need has been felt to increase the pace of Aadhaar enrolments in other States to-enable a rapid roll out of DBTL.” It added that the reallocation of states for Aadhaar enrolments is also expected to ensure that capacities created by UIDAI for enrolments and back-end processing are utilized optimally.

Currently, DBT is in operation for 28 centrally sponsored schemes in 121 districts and DBTL has been rolled out in 291 districts. A year after DBT was implemented, the government has disbursed about Rs 3,124 crore through this channel, and of this, Rs 2,574 crore was towards LPG subsidy launched in June 2013.

It was not immediately clear if some target in terms of exact enrollment numbers has been worked out for UIDAI. The earlier news report had quoted a government official saying that the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), under which the Registrar General of India (RGI) functions, has been consulted on the matter. MHA's comfort zones and prior commitments have been kept in mind while planning the move, the official added. The Cabinet note had been moved by the Planning Commission with the idea that if Direct Benefits Transfer has to be expedited, Aadhaar enrollment needs to move quickly in populous states such as UP, Bihar and Chhattisgarh as NPR enrolment in these states was slow.