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|
 Aadhaar scheme logo | |
| Agency overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | January-2009 |
| Jurisdiction | Government of India |
| Headquarters | New Delhi |
| Annual budget | ₹30 billion (US$350 million) (2010) |
| Agency executives |
|
| Website | uidai.gov.in |
The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), is an Authority of the Government of India. The UIDAI was established in January-2009 under the Planning Commission of India. Its mandate is to issue Unique Identity to:
1. Residents of India (called Aadhaar)
2. Corporate entities like Companies, NGOs, Trusts, Political Parties etc.(Corporate-UID).
Till now UIDAI has made progress on Aadhaar only. Work on Corporate-UID is yet to start, however it has been provisioned with its 12-digit Number System. Corporate-UID is intended to bring transparency on donations, financial transactions; and to prevent Wholesale-Corruption of money-laundering, benami transactions (i.e. under fictitious name), allocation of natural resources like Land, Spectrum, Mining of Sand, Iron-ore, Coal-blocks etc.
UIDAI owns and operates the main database server called Central Identity Data Repository (CIDR).
The Authority is headed by Chairman of cabinet rank. The UIDAI is part of the Planning Commission of India. Nandan Nilekani, former co-chairman of Infosys Technologies, was appointed as the first Chairman of the authority in June 2009. Vijay S Madan, an IAS Officer, joined as the Director General and Mission Director of the Unique Identification Authority of India on 1 April 2013 . He replaced Ram Sewak Sharma, who has moved to Jharkhand as the chief secretary of the state.
Features of Aadhaar
Aadhaar is a 12-digit Personal Identification Number (PIN) issued to residents of India for life-time. Aadhaar is not mandatory to obtain; similarly as Driving License, Bank Account or Passport is not mandatory to obtain. However, Aadhaar is mandatory to get subsidy on LPG or to receive other services in compliance with the interim order dated 23-Sep-2013 of the Supreme Court. It is a unique Number and about 100 billion Aadhaar Numbers can be issued. The Aadhaar Number mapped with the demographics and bio-metric data of the Aadhaar-holder is stored in CIDR database. The data is – photograph, ten finger-print, iris date of birth, address, gender etc. In case of death of Aadhaar-holder, its status is marked accordingly in the CIDR database; thus Aadhaar is never reused.
Aadhaar is NOT a Card. It is just a NUMBER, written on paper letter to tell us. It serves the purpose if Aadhaar-holder can memorize it. It has been clarified by Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia. Identity of Aadhaar-holder can be verified online thru E-KYC process within 10 seconds. E-KYC authentication is consent-based and paperless; provides electronic copy of the Aadhaar letter. Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has made Aadhaar letter and E-KYC as a standard Proof of Identity (PoI) and Proof of Address (PoA) to open a Bank account. Aadhaar letter is also accepted by Passport Seva, SEBI, Deptt. of Revenue, IRDA, PFRDA, Deptt. of Telecom etc.
Out of 1.25 billion (125 crore) population of India, about 750 million (75 crore) do not have proper Identity document. Only 50 million people have Passport, 150 million have Driving License and 30 million pay Taxes. Lack of Identity deprives the poor land-less people from availing even the basic services. Now Aadhaar is supposed to serve this basic purpose of providing Identity.
One of the main objectives of Aadhaar is to use it as an effective governance tool - to bring transparency, efficiency and weed out the bogus beneficiaries from public welfare programs e.g. public welfare pensions, scholarships, public health, NREGA, subsidy on PDS Ration, Kerosene, LPG etc. Thus Aadhaar is expected to save public exchequer from bogus beneficiaries upto Rs. 1.1 Trillion (Rs. 110,000 crore) by the year 2020 as per Study Report of National Institute of Public Finance & Planning.
In 1980s pointing towards the wide-spread corruption in public welfare services in India, the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had made a famous statement in Parliament that only 15% of benefits reach the poor people, rest 85% are eaten-away by the corrupt middlemen. Similarly, the World Bank Chief said that Aadhaar will help eradicate poverty in India.
India is moving rapidly towards e-governance. The stand-alone databases of public services do not have ability to detect and prevent fictitious & ineligible beneficiaries. Hence Aadhaar Number will work as pivot of e-governance and will inter-link all the public service databases. It is capable of eliminating Retail-corruption in public domain which has been plaguing Social Welfare Programs badly. Hence there is protest in various forms from the vested interests to subvert Aadhaar program. The vested interests tried to create phobia unsuccessfully, which is irrelevant in a country like India where about 750 million people starve everyday for at least one meal. Similar protests happened 3 decades ago against computerization of Banking and Rail Ticket-booking; and now people enjoy the Anywhere Anytime Rail Ticket-booking and Bank ATMs.
Aadhaar is not capable of preventing wholesale-corruption like allocation of Coal-blocks, 2G Spectrum, Mining of Iron-ore, Sand, Onion Hoarding etc. Corporate-UID is required to prevent such wholesale-corruptions and this provision is already inbuilt in UIDAI Number System, yet implementation is pending.
Who is afraid of Aadhaar and Why?
As the public databases are getting inter-linked one by one thru Aadhaar Number in various States (particularly Delhi State), we see the following effects:
- Middlemen are finding difficult to continue with corruption in public welfare pensions, scholarships, public health, NREGA, subsidy on PDS Ration, Kerosene, LPG etc.
- Ineligible, duplicate and fictitious beneficiaries are getting eliminated from public welfare pensions, scholarships, public health, NREGA, subsidy on PDS Ration, Kerosene, LPG etc.
- Corrupts are finding difficult to buy & sell Benami land & building (i.e.under fictitious name).
- Corrupts are finding difficult to open & operate Benami companies for money-laundering.
- Corrupts are finding difficult to open & operate Benami bank accounts for keeping black-money.
- Tax-evaders are finding difficult to evade taxes.
- Impersonation & proxy is getting difficult to commit.
- Criminals & Terrorists are getting detected and tracked thru inter-linked databases of mobile phone, bank account, travel documents etc.
- Illegal Immigrants are getting detected and tracked thru inter-linked databases of mobile phone, bank account, travel documents etc.
- It is getting difficult for Criminals to hide as records are getting accessible to Police from any State of India.
- It is getting difficult to obtain another new Driving License and Arms License from another State once it got impounded.
Obstacles of Aadhaar
The Supreme Court of India paased an Interim Order on 23-Sep-2013 that no public services such as LPG should be stopped due to lack of Aadhaar. However, the government said it does not stop public services such as LPG at Market Rate (non-subsidized). However, Aadhaar will be mandatory to get the subsidy on LPG. Those who do not want subsidy can continue without Aadhaar. The final decision of Supreme Court is pending on 22-Oct-2013.
The Union Cabint has cleared the UIDAI Bill-2010 on 08-Oct-2013. It is expected to be tabled in Parliament during winter session.
Name and logo
UID project is also known as Aadhaar meaning support or foundation, and its logo is a yellow sun with a fingerprint embedded in its centre. The logo was designed by Atul Sudhakarrao Pande.
Projected Cost and Benefits
About Rs. 30 billion (Rs.3,000 crore) has been spent on Aadhaar program as of October 2013 with enrollment of over 500 million (50 crore) persons. Government informed the Parliament in August-2013 that the total sanctioned cost of UIDAI (including permanent infrastructure cost) is Rs.123 billion (Rs. 12, 398 crore) for issuing 1.25 billion Aadhaar Numbers. Thus at the end the unit cost will be about Rs.100 per Aadhaar.
The projected Cost & Benefit Analysis Report by National Institute of Public Finance & Policy shows that Aadhaar-enabled public welfare programs will be able to save Rs. 1.1 Trillion (Rs. 110,000 crore) by the year 2020.
International Monetary Fund (IMF) has projected that Aadhaar-DBT will save 0.5% of GDP from corruption.
Aadhaar-enabled LPG subsidy payment has saved US$ 1 billion on LPG import till August 2013 due to reduction of bogus connections. It is expected to save more than US$ 2 billion once LPG subsidy thru Aadhaar becomes applicable to entire country. Similarly, 2/3rd of subsidized Kerosene has been saved from bogus beneficiaries in one block in Rajasthan.
The official estimate for the project is ₹180 billion (US$2.1 billion). A sum of ₹1 billion (US$12 million) was approved in the 2009-2010 union budget to fund the agency for its first year of existence. UID has received a huge boost with Pranab Mukherjee, Minister of Finance, allocating ₹19 billion (US$220 million) to the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) for 2010-11. Pranab Mukherjee has allocated ₹17.58 billion (US$210 million) for budget year 2012-13. Amount approved for Phase I, II and III is ₹89.62 billion (US$1.0 billion) for the period up to March 2017.
Initial estimates project that the initiative will create 100,000 new jobs in the country, and business opportunities worth ₹65 billion (US$760 million) in the first phase of implementation, over three years.
Enrollment & Generation Status
The total number of Aadhaar enrollment as of October-2013 is over 500 Million (50 Crores).
The total number of Aadhaar issued as of 20-October-2013 is over 460 Million (46 Crores). This is more than 38% of the population of India. It is planned to reach 600 Million by mid-2014, when one in every two Indian residents will have an Aadhaar.
Aadhaar enrollment began in September 2010. As of 31 December 2011, there were 36,000 active enrollment stations in thirty two states and union territories. In February 2012, enrolment reached the originally approved target of 200 million. Enrollment commenced in the middle of April 2012 for another 400 million residents being enrolled through the multi-registrar model. NPR continues to enroll in its assigned territory.
Further details are available at the UIDAI portal.
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On 27 January 2012 The Cabinet Committee on Unique Identification Authority of India related issues (CC-UIDA1) announced that the NPR and UIDAI enrollments should proceed simultaneously. UIDAI will be allowed to enroll additional 400 million residents beyond 200 million already approved. The remaining 600 million will be enrolled by NPR and Aadhaar number of these will be issued by UIDAI. On 30 January 2012 CC-UIDAI approved budget of phase III of the scheme that covers the cost creation, storage and maintenance of data and services for harnessing the uses of Aadhaar for the entire estimated population till March 2017.  Report of the Parliament's Standing Committee on FinanceIn December 2011, Parliament's Standing Committee on Finance headed by Yashwant Sinha while considering the National Identification Authority of India Bill 2010 (that was to give legal backing for the whole exercise), termed the project as directionless and conceptualised with no clarity of purpose. The committee also expressed its reservations on the technology used for the project calling it "untested, unproven, unreliable and unsafe". According to the standing committee report the scheme is riddled with serious lacunae and concerns. “The UID scheme has been conceptualized with no clarity of purpose and leaving many things to be sorted out during the course of its implementation; and is being implemented in a directionless way with a lot of confusion.” The report continues “…The scheme which was initially meant for BPL families has been extended for all residents in India and to certain other persons. The Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM), constituted for the purpose of collating the two schemes namely, the UID and National Population Register(NPR), and to look into the methodology and specifying target for effective completion of the UID scheme, failed to take concrete decision on important issues…” More importantly the committee has observed that the UID scheme lacks clarity on even the basic purpose of issuing “aadhaar” number. Financial exclusionObservation 3(f) of the standing committee reads: “The full or near full coverage of marginalized sections for issuing aadhaar numbers could not be achieved mainly owing to two reasons viz. (i) the UIDAI doesn’t have the statistical data relating to them; and (ii) estimated failure of biometrics is expected to be as high as 15% due to a large chunk of population being dependent on manual labour.” Even the Ministry of Planning in their written reply to the standing committee stated that “failure to enroll is a reality”. The introducer system wont be of much use. How many introducers or GOs would be there to introduce millions of slum dwellers, tribal population, or in rural India where they hardly have electricity or internet connectivity? (friendly government school teachers who rang your door bell a year ago may perhaps know some of them) If they can find some introducers, why can’t some anti-social elements too can find out some others? The result would be disastrous for our national security for innumerable foreign national (including terrorists) would be enrolled in Aadhaar database with local addresses. Chances are that many more people in rural India where there is no electricity and internet connectivity will be excluded from social welfare schemes even if they acquire aadhaar number. The committee in observation 3(d) notes: “Continuance of various existing forms of identity and the requirement of furnishing, other documents‟ for proof of address, even after issue of aadhaar number, would render the claim made by the Ministry that Aadhaar number is to be used as a general proof of identity and proof of address meaningless”. UIDAI clearly says that UID is no substitutes for existing Ids and The Working Paper of the UIDAI which starts with a claim that UID will help the poor access various services ends with a caveat: “UID will only guarantee identity, not rights, benefits and entitlements” Dependency on private players“The National Informatics Centre (NIC) have pointed out that the issues relating to privacy and security of UID data could be better handled by storing in a Government data centre;” . Even then the UID project is dependent on private players. The committee further notes: “9. The Committee are afraid that the scheme may end up being dependent on private agencies, despite contractual agreement made by the UIDAI with several private vendors. As a result, the beneficiaries may be forced to pay over and above the charges to be prescribed by the UIDAI for availing of benefits and services, which are now available free of cost “ . UIADAI has entered into contracts with several government and non-government agencies for enrolment and data collection. The private companies include foreign companies like L1 Identity solutions (now MorphoTrust USA) and Accenture that have even ex-CIA officials on board and as staff. National securityThe committee has expressed concern over the implications of the Project Aadhaar on national security. It said: “The Committee are unable to understand the rationale of expanding the scheme to persons who are not citizens, as this entails numerous benefits proposed by the Government” “This will, they apprehend, make even illegal immigrants entitled for an aadhaar number”. The committee especially is concerned about the efficacy of introducer system on national security. As opined by many the introducer system could result in many anti-national and anti-social elements acquiring aadhaar numbers on false addresses. Relationship with National Population RegistryUIDAI is using data collected by the Census authorities to prepare the National Population Register(NPR) for creating the UIDs. The NPR is not an exclusive database of Indian Citizens. It contains data on all residents of the country including foreigners. Therefore, issuing UIDs based on the data in the NPR would help illegal migrants get these IDs and would allow them access the government services and programs. Nationality of the individual is one of the variables being recorded during the enumeration of NPR. But the instruction to the Census personnel says:"Nationality of each person has to be asked from the respondent and recorded as declared by him". The officials have been asked to advise people to give correct nationality and that he/she can be penalised for giving false information. Such advise may not work with illegal migrants. The responsibility of proving the identity still lies on the shoulders of residents and not on UIDAI. Privacy and civil liberty issuesSome activists have expressed concerns that Aadhaar has potentials for civil liberty and privacy violations, especially when registrars include non-government agencies. Many eminent personalities, including former Supreme Court Justice. V R Krishna Iyer, Historian Romila Thapar, Independent Law Researcher Dr. Usha Ramanathan, Magsaysay Award winner Aruna Roy, and Booker prize winner Arundhathi Roy have questioned the legal validity of the whole exercise. The standing committee on finance observes that: ”The clearance of the Ministry of Law & Justice for issuing aadhaar numbers, pending passing the Bill by Parliament, on the ground that powers of the Executive are co-extensive with the legislative power of the Government and that the Government is not debarred from exercising its Executive power in the areas which are not regulated by the legislation does not satisfy the Committee. The Committee are constrained to point out that in the instant case, since the law making is underway with the bill being pending, any executive action is as unethical and violative of Parliament‟s prerogatives.” The committee also observed that a National Data Protection Law is “a pre-requisite for any law that deals with large scale collection of information from individuals and its linkages across separate databases. Itwould be difficult to deal with the issues like access and misuse of personal information, surveillance, profiling, linking and matching of data bases and securing confidentiality of information etc.“ The UIDAI’s claim that it has incorporated data protection principles within its policy and implementation framework does not satisfy the committee. In another observation that could raise many questions on the legalities of collections of biometrics even for NPR, the committee notes that “The collection of biometric information and its linkage with personal information of individuals without amendment to the Citizenship Act, 1955 as well as the Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003, appears to be beyond the scope of subordinate legislation, which needs to be examined in detail by Parliament”. The committee deliberated at length on the civil liberty perspective of the project and considered opinions from eminent personalities in the field of law and civil rights. And speaking on the possibilities of data misuse, it notes that “The Committee are at a loss to understand as to how the UIDAI, without statutory power, could address key issues concerning their basic functioning and initiate proceedings against the defaulters and penalize them.” The committee also notes that the scheme leads to ID fraud as prevalent in some countries. Cabinet and Parliamentary approvalsThe Union Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has approved the UIDAI Bill-2010 on 08-October-2013. It may be tabled in the Parliament during winter session. The former chief minister of Kerala, V. S. Achuthanandan had claimed in July 2011 that the program was being launched without "proper debate" in parliament. Other activists had expressed similar concerns. In a letter to the Prime Minister in November 2011, home minister P. Chidambaram had also expressed discomfort about the fact that the project had no cabinet clearance, and hence, may be questioned at a later date. On 17 December 2011 parliamentary standing committee on finance chaired by Yashwant Sinha rejected the proposed bill by saying: “…the Committee categorically convey their unacceptability of the National Identification Authority of India Bill, 2010…The Committee would, thus, urge the Government to reconsider and review the UID scheme.…” This was the conclusion of Parliament's Standing Committee on Finance (SCoF), which examined the Bill to convert the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) into a statutory authority. With this categorical rebuff, the SCoF dealt a body blow to the Aadhaar project, which is being implemented from September 2010 without Parliament's approval. Economic risksThe projected costs of the Aadhaar project have been quoted between US$6 billion and US$30.42 billion. These costs may not be covered by future revenue produced from the project, which is estimated at US$1.32 billion. The benefits arising from reduction in leakages with modest assumptions are estimated to be 52.85% as mentioned in the cost and benefit analysis done by National Institute of Public Finance and Policy. Parliaments standing Committee on Finance committee discussed at length on the financial implications of the project as evident from page 23-25 of their report. Till date Rs. 31703.2 million have been allotted for the project. More fund clearance is on the anvil. Rs. 88.61 billion has been approved for Phase III of the project. There are no clear figures available on the financial burden the project could incur while some independent estimates pegs the cost as high as Rs. 1,500 billion. As was the case with UK ID project, the cost will escalate for sure. Lets quote from the report of the standing committee on finance : “(a) no committee has been constituted to study the financial implications of the UID scheme; and (b) comparative costs of the aadhaar number and various existing ID documents are also not available. The Committee also note that Detailed Project Report (DPR) of the UID Scheme has been done much later in April, 2011. The Committee thus strongly disapprove of the hasty manner in which the UID scheme has been approved. Unlike many other schemes / projects, no comprehensive feasibility study, which ought to have been done before approving such an expensive scheme, has been done involving all aspects of the UID scheme including cost-benefit analysis, comparative costs of aadhaar number and various forms of existing identity, financial implications and prevention of identity theft, for example, using hologram enabled ration card to eliminate fake and duplicate beneficiaries." Reliability of biometric methods
Using the UIDAI own data - UIDAI Model, Aadhaar is dependent on biometrics being reliable enough to guarantee that there is a one-to-one correspondence between real people and electronic identities on the CIDR (central ID repository). In December 2010, UIDAI self-published a report on their proof of concept trial designed to test, among other things, whether biometrics are reliable enough to guarantee that every entry on the CIDR is unique. UIDAI's figures published show error rate at .01% using finger print and iris only, this low rate combined with photograph match can achieve the desired unique identification. In December 2011, UIDAI conducted a study using the enrolment of 84 million (84 million) residents and obtained statistical results to measure the efficacy of use of biometrics for de-duplication of Indian population. The test was conducted on a production scale (comprising biometric data of 84 million residents in 32 States and Union Territories). The accuracy of actual recorded biometric was found to be several order higher than the accuracy achievable by the critics. The enrolment process includes concept of exception that allows for enrolment of a person without collectible biometric. It is meant for persons with missing fingers or eyes. The enrolment agencies have exploited this feature to enroll fictitious identities. For example, a coriander plant in rural Andhra Pradesh received its unique identification number and of course a card for itself with the photo of a mobile phone. An Aadhaar card with number : 4991 1866 5246 was issued in the name of Mr Kothimeer (Coriander), Son of Mr Palav (Biryani), Mamidikaya Vuru (Village Raw Mango), of Jambuladinne in Anantapur district. As the card displayed the photo of a mobile phone, officials have no clue of the address where the card has to be delivered' or how over 30,000 UIDs were generated by using the fingerprint of a man who was exemployee. This is on top of the earlier snafus of identity proof being handed out without any verification at West Delhi MP Mahabal Mishra's residence., a wanted terrorist getting an UID under a false name, or even giving a man an UID card with the picture of a woman. UIDAI has promised to fix the loopholes in "ver 2" beginning June 2012. Legal challengesK S Puttaswamy, a retired judge of Karnataka High Court filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in the Supreme Court challenging the legality of UIDAI. The petition, among other things, argued that:
A bench of Chief Justice Altamas Kabir and Justice Jasti Chelameswar agreed to examine the matter and issued notice to the Govt of India on 30 November 2012. On 23 September 2013 the Supreme Court has castigated the AADHAR and said "Aadhar cards not compulsory, don’t give them to illegal immigrants". Thew Apex Court also trashed the Centre's claim of Rs 50,000 crore expenses on the UIDAI project and said that Aadhar card is not necessary for important services. A bench of Justices BS Chauhan and SA Bobde said, "The Centre and state governments must not insist on Aadhar cards from citizens before providing them essential services." The Central Government on 23 September 2013 informed the Supreme Court that securing Aadhar cards, being issued by Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), was optional and it has not made it mandatory for the citizens. LaunchUIDAI launched AADHAAR program in the tribal village, Tembhli, in Shahada, Nandurbar, Maharashtra on 29 September 2010. The program was inaugurated by Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh along with UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi. The first resident to receive an AADHAAR was Ranjana Sonawane of Tembhli village. UIDAI Head Quarter LandThe Delhi Development Authority’s statutory board of enquiry has accepted a prayer by India Against Corruption (IAC) to scrap change of land use (CLU) for the headquarter of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). Sarbajit Roy, the national convenor of IAC, had alleged that the valuable piece of land in New Delhi, worth Rs. 900 crore, was leased to UIDAI at throwaway price using the CLU. At present UIDAI functions from an office in Jeevan Bharti Building in New Delhi’s Connaught Circus. The Planning Commission, its nodal agency, is responsible for providing infrastructure. The disputed land is presently owned by 2 financially ailing government telecoms BSNL and MTNL which are locked in a court dispute. UIDAI launches website in five regional languagesThe UIDAI launched its multi-lingual website to reach out to various sections of the society. The website, www.uidai.gov.in, will now appear in five regional languages: Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Marathi and Tamil in addition to Hindi and English". The second phase of the launch will include microsites in Assamese, Malayalam, Oriya, Punjabi and Telugu. Coverage, goals and logistics   It is believed that Unique National IDs will help address the rigged state elections and widespread embezzlement that affects subsidies and poverty alleviation programs such as NREGA. Addressing illegal immigration into India and terrorist threats is another goal of the program. In January 2012, the government of India reiterated the goal of the UID project, "... is primarily aimed at ensuring inclusive growth by providing a form of identity to those who do not have any identity. It seeks to provide UID numbers to the marginalized sections of society and thus would strengthen equity. Apart from providing identity, the UID will enable better delivery of services and effective governance." National Population Registry (NPR) project, a distinctly separate initiative by the Home Ministry, is meant to issue national identity cards to enhance national security. Most reports suggest that the plan is for each Indian resident to have a unique identification number with associated identifying biometric data and photographs by 2011. However, other reports claim that obtaining a unique number would be voluntary, but those that opt to stay out of the system "will find it very inconvenient: they will not have access to facilities that require you to cite your ID number." Government distributed benefits are fragmented by purpose and region in India, which results in widespread bribery, denial of public services and loss of income, especially afflicting poor citizens. As the unique identity database comes into existence, the various identity databases (voter ID, passports, ration cards, licenses, fishing permits, border area id cards) that already exist in India are planned to be linked to it. The Authority is liaising with various national, state and local government entities to begin this process. The Union Labor Ministry has offered its verified Employment Provident Fund (EPFO) database of 42 million citizens as the first database to be integrated into the unique ID system. UIDAI has headquarters in Delhi and a technology centre in Bangalore. It also has 8 regional offices in Chandigarh, Delhi, Lucknow, Ranchi, Guwahati, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bangalore with IAS,IRS officers heading it. Direct Benefit TransferMain article: Direct Benefit TransferDirect Benefit Transfer or DBT is an anti-poverty program launched by the Government of India on 1 January 2013. This program aims to transfer subsidies directly to the people living below the poverty line through the Unique Identification Authority of India. People's ReactionAlthough the government has launched Aadhaar and Direct Benefit Transfer scheme with the intention of minimising corruption and bringing transparency in the transaction system, the decision of the government has not been welcomed by a majority of the people of the country. The attribution to this reaction appears to be valid as the functioning of the UIDAI has been questioned at a number of times at different locations of the country. Besides improper functioning the large numbers of complaints people have filed also reveal the lapses of the authority. Reactions of eminent persons to UID
Reactions of experts to UIDAnupam Saraph, who designed and implemented identity schemes for government and private organisations, has cautioned citizens thus:- Safety
News Updates
See alsoExternal linksReferences
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