)
The Union government entered into a damage-control mode on Tuesday to repair the blow to its identification scheme, Aadhaar, after Monday’s directive from the Supreme Court said that enrolling in this couldn’t be made a condition to access government services or subsidies.
Rajeev Shukla, minister of state for planning, told news agency PTI that the long-pending National Identification Authority of India Bill, 2010, to provide statutory status to the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), was likely to be pressed in the winter session of Parliament. “We will bring the Bill for discussion and passage,” he said. The Bill was introduced in the Rajya Sabha in 2010 but was rejected in 2011 by Parliament’s standing committee on finance, chaired by opposition leader Yashwant Sinha.
“The Bill was sent back to the Planning Commission, with some amendments. We will soon take it to the cabinet and try to push the draft for passage in the winter session,” Shukla said
Top officials of the UIDAI, such as chairman Nandan Nilekani and director-general Vijay Madan, were not available for comment. However, Union petroleum minister Veerappa Moily — his ministry’s national programme for direct cash transfer of cooking gas subsidies based on an Aadhaar number is affected — said he’d been in touch with the solicitor-general on the issue. “He will soon be approaching the Supreme Court for a correction on the decision,” Moily said on the sidelines of a conference here on Tuesday.
The SC had said an Aadhaar number could not be made a mandatory condition for availing government benefits and services such as gas connections, scholarships, salaries, etc. It also said the number should not be allotted to any illegal immigrants.
The related question is how the government’s Direct Benefits Transfer (DBT) scheme should or would be changed to either provide an alternative to Aadhaar or build a system which does away with the need to link bank accounts to a unique identity. Under DBT, the government is building a system of transferring welfare payments such as pensions and scholarships directly into Aadhaar-linked bank accounts of beneficiaries. For instance, cooking gas subsidy under the scheme is to be extended to 235 more districts from the earlier 20.
The DBT scheme was pegged to be a key electoral plank for the government ahead of the general elections next year. So far, UIDAI has issued UID numbers to 429.6 million people.
In Monday’s order, the SC bench headed by B S Chauhan said: “No person should suffer for not getting the Aadhaar card in spite of the fact that some authority had issued a circular making it mandatory and when any person applies to get the Aadhaar card voluntarily, it may be checked whether that person is entitled for it under the law and it should not be given to any illegal immigrant.”
The interim order was passed in a public interest petition from a retired Karnataka high court judge, K S Puttaswamy, who argued UID didn’t have parliamentary sanction. The related criticism is that the scheme is supposed to be voluntary but the government is making it mandatory to enroll for UID if a citizen wishes to avail of various services, including even a bank account. Governments in Delhi and Maharashtra have also made it compulsory to get an Aadhaar number for registering a marriage.
“Aadhaar is basically a means to identify people and there are several other ways to do it. They may not be as perfect as the government claims Aadhaar to be,but that doesn’t mean the SC ruling makes cash transfers impractical,” suggests V S Vyas, member of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council.
Shukla also said the UIDAI had not made enrolment for Aadhaar mandatory and it was for central and state governments to decide how to verify the identity of beneficiaries.
“Aadhaar establishes the identity of a person and not the nationality. It also serves as proof of residence. Moreover, it is a voluntary facility and not mandatory,” he said.
