Cabinet clears new Aadhaar Bill

The Cabinet has cleared new Aadhaar Bill which will be introduced in Parliament soon, official sources said.
"Cabinet has approved new Aadhaar Bill. It will be brought in Parliament in next few days," official sources told PTI.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in his budget speech for 2016-17 announced government plan to give statutory backing to Aadhaar.
"We will undertake significant reforms, such as the enactment of a law to ensure that all government benefits are conferred upon persons who deserve it, by giving a statutory backing to the Aadhar platform," Jaitley had said in budget speech.
Till date over 98 crore Aadhaar numbers have been generated. Per day average of 26 lakh biometric and over 1.5 lakh e-KYC transactions are made. Aadhaar numbers have been seeded in 11.19 crore DBTL accounts out of total 16.5 crore DBTL beneficiaries.

There is already a National Identification Authority of India Bill, 2010, pending in the Rajya Sabha.

The statutory status will provide a legal foundation to Aadhaar for expanding its use for a range of developmental purposes.
It has been suggested that all benefits, subsidies or services funded from the consolidated fund of India should be through Aadhaar platform.
Jaitley said that a critical component of minimum government and maximum governance is to ensure targeted disbursement of government subsidies to actual beneficiaries.
"First, we will introduce the targeted delivery of financial and other subsidiary benefits services by using the Aadhar framework. The bill will be introduced in the current budget session of Parliament.

"The Aadhar number or authentication shall however not confirm any rights of citizenship or domicile," he said.
The finance minister said the public money should reach the poor and deserving without any leakage.