Chidambaram asks bankers to seek Aadhaar numbers from customers

Finance Minister P. Chidambaram today asked the banks to approach the customers for submission of Aadhaar number to ensure seamless transfer of cash benefit.

"Today I have asked my office to issue an advisory to all the chairmen of the banks to say that banks must directly approach the beneficiary and get the Aadhaar number and seed it into bank account," he said in an interview to DD News.

Chidambaram described the Direct Benefit Transfer scheme a 'game changer'.

"80 per cent (seeding of Aadhaar with bank account) is doable, achievable and with the advisory going out today, the roll out can be quite rapid in the remaining districts," he said.

The Finance Minister, while talking on transfer of LPG subsidy, said: "It is an easy subsidy to be transferred. There is only one pay master which is the government of India to oil companies."

Chidambaram said that LPG subsidy would be rolled out throughout the country by the end of the year.

When asked what kind of savings the government can achieve through the DBT scheme, Chidambaram said: "Quite a bit...there will be huge saving. I think this will bring greater efficiency, transparency, accountability besides of course giving me significant savings."

"If say one crore LPG beneficiaries are not genuine beneficiaries and we knock out one crore every month at least for 9 cylinders at the subsidy rate of about Rs 500 a cylinder. I will save Rs 500 crore a month and 9 cylinders I will save Rs 4,500 crore," he added, while citing an example.

Chidambaram further said the aim of DBT is to get the money in the bank account, and added that the Aadhaar provides the platform, there is another platform in the usual banking channel.

"When Aadhaar is not there, it means the payment will not go through Aadhaar payment channel, but it will still go through NEFT as long as the bank is able to identify the account by the account number and authority who is making the payment knows the account number," Chidambaram said.

"So, today the payment is going through two channel. The goal is that all the payment should move to Aadhaar channel," he added.

The DBT has been rolled out in 121 districts from July 1 across the nation.