Aadhaar seeding helped govt save Rs 90,000 cr under various

Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi Tuesday counted benefits of Aadhar seeding saying the central and the state governments have been able to save about Rs 90,000 crore under various welfare schemes by removing fake and duplicate beneficiaries due to it.

He emphasised on the need for completing the integration of bank accounts with mobile and Aadhaar numbers in order to bring in more transparency and check corruption.

Modi was speaking after launching "Bihar Aadhaar Authentication Framework (BAAF)" portal which is an umbrella framework to enable all Aadhaar based transactions in the state making service delivery more effective and efficient.

BAAF is providing two major services namely- authentication of Aadhaar numbers and enabling e-KYC.

"Digital is a way of life and digital revolution is changing the way of life. We are facing new problems in the cyber, digital age... Bank accounts are being integrated with mobile and aadhaar numbers in order to bring in more transparency and check corruption. There is a minimum human interference in it," Modi said.

Modi, who also holds finance portfolio, said that Aadhaar and its usage have been able to identify 2.75 crore fake ration cards across the country and thus saved Rs 29,708 crore while Rs 16,000 crore was saved in MNREGA scheme following Adhaar seeding.

The government saved Rs 42,275 crore by cancelling 3.80 crore fake LPG connections and 2.22 crore people sacrificing subsidy on the gas cylinder, he said.

A total of 10.17 crore people of Bihar have got their Aadhaar card which is 83 per cent of state's population, he said.

There are 8.19 crore bank accounts in the state of which 5.82 crore accounts have been seeded with Aadhaar while Aadhaar authentication work of 4.84 crore accounts have been completed. Besides 5.13 crore accounts have been integrated with mobile phone numbers.

The state govenrment has transferred Rs 8,152 crore under "Direct Benefit Transfer" scheme to 4.21 crore beneficiaries, Modi said.

Information Technology Department's Secretary Rahul Singh, Planning and Development Department's Secretary Manish Kumar Verma and Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) Assistant Director General, Patna, Rupesh Kumar Srivastava also addressed the function.