Economy - MAHAMAG Magazine beyond boundaries

The Aadhaar card is now the most widely held identification document in the country with a voluntary enrolment of 92crore people. It is also perhaps the sole ID for many of its holders, including many families below the poverty line.

In comparison, 5.7crore people have passports, 17crore people PAN cards, 60crore voter ID cards, 15crore ration cards and 17.3crore driving licences.

Aadhaar has helped effect savings of Rs2,600 crore by eliminating claims in welfare schemes besides engendering greater transparency and consequently reducing corruption, reports from states. The benefit of Aadhar cards would be better targeted subsidies. The leakages in the PDS, fuel subsidy, NREGA and other social welfare schemes can be controlled through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) by linking Aadhar numbers with Bank accounts. The biggest challenge though would be reach of banking system in India. Sixty percent of the 1.2 billion populations in India remain outside the formal banking

Aadhaar being effective

system. The success of the DBT depends entirely on the speed with which financial inclusion can be achieved. It is also benefits in programmes for the poor like MNREGA where 3 crore of 9 crore active workers have Aadhaar-linked bank accounts. One crore wage transactions

have been remitted and the process has become more efficient and transparent with 87,000 banking correspondents providing village and neighbourhood-level micro ATM services. If a legal order restricts use of the Aadhaar gateway-the Supreme Court is

currently examine closely it many sections such as MNREGA workers will be affected. Various pension schemes with over 2.5 crore beneficiaries have 54lakh accounts linked to Aadhaar with 64lakh transactions completed, accounting for Rs507 crore. The government is keen that the court allows the principle of voluntary use of Aadhaar for a host of services other than LPG, PDS and kerosene.The court has currently restricted Aadhaar to the three schemes. MNREGA workers,particularly women who have to forego household responsibilities and daily earnings to travel to a bank in remote areas. In conservative societies, the problem is compounded as women are not able to travel alone and may have to be accompanied by male relative. It is more transparent to people and this makes more comfort for public matters when it links with other things like bank for LPG subsidy, Ration subsidy, Jan Dhan Yojana etc. but care should take in avoiding difficulty to people.Otherwise how the crores spending such schemes would be useful ?