The Centre has notified the new Aadhaar Act, which gives the numbers it assigned statutory backing for transferring subsidies and benefits to eligible individuals.
The Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and other Subsidies, benefits and services) Act, 2016 will provide “efficient, transparent, and targeted delivery of subsidies, benefits and services, the expenditure for which is incurred from the Consolidated Fund of India, to individuals residing in India through assigning of unique identity numbers to such individuals”, said the notification dated 26 March.
It will be used for all benefits linked to the consolidated fund of India. The Aadhaar Bill for this act was approved by Parliament on 16 March and tabled in Parliament as a money bill.
Those individuals to whom an Aadhaar number has not been assigned, “shall be offered alternate and viable means of identification for delivery of the subsidy, benefit or service”.
The Aadhaar number will not be proof of citizenship or domicile. The Act reads:
The Authority (UIDAI) shall take special measures to issue Aadhaar number to women, children, senior citizens, persons with disability, unskilled and unorganised workers, nomadic tribes or to such other persons who do not have any permanent dwelling house and such other categories of individuals as may be specified by regulations.
It provides that both the Centre and state governments can use Aadhaar for the disbursal of benefits and subsidies.
The Act provides statutory backing to the UIDAI by providing for the establishment of the Unique Identification Authority of India, consisting of a Chairperson (part time or full time) and two Members (part time).
The bill has penalty provisions which include imprisonment for 1-3 years, or a penalty of Rs 10,000 to Rs 1 lakh for violation of the rules.
Till date, 99.64 crore Aadhaar numbers have been issued. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had informed Parliament this month that targeted subsidies for LPG consumers through Aadhar cards had resulted in over Rs 15,000 crore of savings at the Centre.
Four states which had started PDS delivery by a similar exercise on a pilot basis had saved more than Rs 2,300 crore.