State government has decided to make the UID number compulsory for the government grants for the students and teachers from aided schools from the next academic year. The housing schemes like SRA also have been announced to be linked with the UID soon.
Maharashtra, which has been second after Andhra Pradesh in the enrolment, has planned certain features that the central government has vowed to adopt. The state information and technology department is launching financial inclusion scheme in the six districts (including Mumbai and Mumbai suburbs) where the bank accounts will be directly linked to the UID. The beneficiaries of government grants, such as wages on NREGS, pensions to the senior citizens, will get the amounts credited to their accounts.
To facilitate No Frill bank accounts, as anounced by the central government in its budget this year, the UID facilities will be made available at the bank branches. “However, for certain schemes it will be made compulsory and the school education grant is one of them. Unless the UID numbers of the students and the teachers are not provided, no grant will be given to the aided schools. The school education department has been informed to be prepared for the same,” said an official from IT Department.
Nandan Nilekani, chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India had a review meeting with chief minister Prithviraj Chavan and key officials from the state government at Sahyadri Guest house on Monday. Nilekani, who expressed satisfaction over the state performance told the state officials that the self-seeding of the information on the UID will be adopted by the authority for the national enrolment.
Through self-seeding facility, the UID card holder is allowed to update information related to the other utilities including his ration card, LPG number by sending an SMS.
State government has enrolled 4.07 crore citizens for the UID, of them 3.44 crore cards have already been issued. The government has stepped up the drive by setting up 1100 machines across the state. Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan said that linking the UID with the bank accounts will help the government bringing transparency in the government scheme.
