Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram has directed the banks, UIDAI authorities and the Puducherry government to work in tandem to address issues of linking Aadhar with bank accounts of beneficiaries of 15 schemes, which was posing as a deterrent in rolling out the Direct Cash Transfer (DCT) from January 1.
Speaking at a meeting organised to review the schemes with officials of banks, UIDAI and Puducherry Government at the JIPMER auditorium here on Monday, Chidambaram said under this scheme, the beneficiaries whose bank accounts were linked with Aadhaar card could only avail of the benefit of the electronic cash transfer. In Puducherry, there were 14,359 beneficiaries for the 15 schemes. As many as 14,250 beneficiaries had bank accounts and the rest were advised to open bank accounts forthwith, he added.
The Aadhar cards of only 3,261 beneficiaries had been linked with their bank accounts in Puducherry. He advised the banks and the Puducherry government to make efforts in collecting the Aadhar number for those beneficiaries who had been issued the card. For those who did not have Aadhar, he advised the government and UIDAI authorities to enrol them and issue Aadhar on a priority basis.
Out of the total beneficiaries, bank accounts of 114 were yet to be known. In this context, Chidambaram said Janani Suraksha Yojana and Matric Scholarship Scheme for the minorities needed special attention for obtaining the bank accounts. He requested the government to digitise the beneficiaries’ list scheme-wise, bank-wise, area-wise and circulate among the banks for opening of new accounts.
The government of India was moving ahead to roll out the DCT for 39 schemes in 51 districts in the country, including Puducherry, from January 1. The government wants to ensure that the DCT schemes were implemented in the entire country by end of 2013 for all the schemes. The Centre was spending as much as `2,00,000 crore as subsidies under various schemes for the targeted sections across the country, he added.
DCT is an electronic Direct Cash Transfer system based on an Aadhaar payment bridge/ platform to the targeted sections of people. It is simple and free from error and corruption, which will be achieved with the utilisation of technology, Chidambaram said.
“It is the black box technology which is being used and there is absolutely no room for mistakes, corruption or human interference in the operation of the scheme,” he said. He also hoped that the payment would reach the bank accounts of beneficiaries on time which they can withdraw whenever necessary.”
He applauded the banks that had successfully waived agricultural loan to the tune of `71,000 crore in three months by identifying the beneficiaries and providing `52,000 crore as educational loan to 24 lakh students across the country. Banks can now rise to the occasion to successfully execute the DCT pilot project on stream from January 1, he said