State makes UID must for govt scheme entitlements

Not revealing info can lead to temporary suspension of services

Recently, the State government issued an order making it mandatory for people availing of benefits from seven government schemes offered by six departments to furnish all information, while enrolling for UID or Aadhaar project. If  information is not revealed, the services could be suspended temporarily.

The Karnataka Resident Data Hub project envisages integrating UID numbers to the various subsidy-linked services offered by the government. Linking this would help them prevent pilferage and leakage of services and also eliminate duplicate and ghost entries.

Towards this purpose, the government has decided to make seven major services ‘Aadhaar enabled.’ These are social security pensions, IP pumpsets, membership of Milk Co-operative Federations, Bhagyalakshmi scheme, LPG connection, ration card and Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Scheme (MGNREGS).

So, apart from providing basic demographic and biometric details, entitlements of these programmes will be required to reveal social security sanction order number and money order number, ration card number, MGNREGS number, bond number in Bhagyalakshmi scheme, IP pumpset details, passbook number in Milk Co-op Society and customer card number for LPG connections. This will be under the Know Your Resident aspect of Aadhaar, implemented through the Centre for e-governance. The order makes it clear that not revealing this information can lead to suspension of services temporarily.

‘Mandatory’

Conversely, it means that anyone who needs to be a beneficiary or would like to continue availing of these services, will need to get an UID.

“It is implied in the order,” declared an senior official confirming the worst fears of many anti-UID advocates that it will be made mandatory.

The government is also offering a carrot by paying an incentive of Rs 100 per head to BPL category entitlements under social security schemes and MGNREGS, if they offer relevant documents.

According to the latest statistics, 4.5 million people have enrolled in Tumkur and Mysore and enrolment in other parts of the state will begin on June 27 in Gulbarga and Dharwad.
The enrolment for the entire State is expected to be completed by 31 March, 2012.