UIDAI conceived half-heartedly by Congress: Jaitley
The UPA itself was a divided house. While Shri Nandan Nilekani pushed hard, a senior minister blocked it
ARUN JAITLEY, Finance minister
NEWDELHI: Finance minister Arun Jaitley said on Sunday that the Aadhaar project was conceived by the Congress albeit “halfheartedly” and the incumbent NDA government perfected it to prevent the leakage of several thousand crores of rupees in public money, enough to fund three welfare schemes of the size of Ayushman Bharat.
Jaitley said the NDA used Aadhaar to eliminate several duplicate, non-existent and fake beneficiaries to save about ₹90,000 crore in the last few years. Quoting the Digital Dividend Report of the World Bank, he said that India can save ₹77,000 crore every year by using Aadhaar. “The savings through Aadhaar can fund three schemes of the size of Ayushman Bharat,” he said.
Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari refuted Jaitley’s claims and said, “Aadhaar was conceptualised, conceived and implemented by the UPA to achieve the objective of social inclusion. The BJP tried to subvert and use it as instrument of surveillance till the Supreme Court intervened and circumscribed the government’s usage of Aadhaar. This government, which has no achievement of its own, is again trying to take credit out of a UPA programme.”
In his blog, ‘Benefits of the Aadhaar – where it stands today’, Jaitley that the UPA legislationwas inadequate. “It provided for the methodology by which the UID would be issued. It did not contain adequate safeguards on privacy. It did not mention for which purpose the UID would be used. The NDA government re-examined... and the legislation was completely changed.” He gave full credit for “conceiving, initiating and implementing” Aadhaar to entrepreneur and politician Nandan Nilekani. “The UPA itself was a divided house. While Shri Nandan Nilekani pushed hard, a senior minister blocked it. The PM was indecisive. The enrolment contin- ued...at a very moderate pace.”
During the UPA regime, the UIDAI was functioning as an attached office of the then Planning Commission since its inception on January 28, 2009. The authority acquired statutory status recently. The Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Bill, 2016, was passed by Parliament on March 16, 2016 and notified on March 26 that year.
Jaitley said that the BJP, when in opposition, had some reservations, particularly with regard to non-citizens being enrolled. He said in the last 28 months over 122 crore Aadhaar numbers had been issued, which covered 99% of the adult population of India. The total subsidy transferred through Aadhaar is worth ₹1,69,868 crore, he said. “With the elimination of middlemen the benefits go directly to the bank accounts. This is a unique technology implemented only in India. The monies saved through Aadhaar is money fruitfully employed for the poor elsewhere,” he added. The UIDAI has the capacity of 10 crore transactions to be authenticated per day, which has undertaken 2,579 crore authentications till date.
Economist Reetika Khera countered the Jaitley’s claims and said, “The World Bank’s potential savings estimates, used by the finance minister in his blog ...were debunked by Jean Dreze and myself last year. It is disappointing that the government is relying on propagandist “research” to justify Aadhaar, ignoring the disruption in welfare due to it, and bringing amendments to the Aadhaar which violate the SC striking down of section 57.”