NEW DELHI: The government on Thursday introduced in the Lok Sabha a bill which, if passed, would link Aadhaar cards to government subsidies. Opposition parties were up on their feet protesting the move.
They claimed that the NDA wanted to “bypass” the Upper House as a similar bill was pending there.
The Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Bill 2016 was introduced by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. The bill seeks to provide Aadhaar a statutory backing and make it the mainstay of the government’s direct benefit transfer programme for subsidies.
As soon as the Finance Minister moved the bill, Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge said that the bill should not be moved as a money bill.
“You have made your intentions clear that you want to avoid the Rajya Sabha,” he said.
Jaitley responded saying that it was the prerogative of the Speaker to decide whether a particular bill could be deemed a money bill or not and she had already given her ruling.
BJD’s B Mehtab said that the issue had been a contentious one as a similar bill was lying in the Rajya Sabha also.To this, Jaitley said that the government was withdrawing that bill from the Upper House. In the Rajya Sabha, the government withdrew the National Identification Authority of India Bill, 2010. The bill sought to establish the National Identification Authority of India (NIAI) to issue unique identification numbers (called Aadhaar) to residents of India.