Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee on Thursday said that the Aadhar-Enabled E-payment system would help in ensuring timely payments directly to the intended beneficiaries while also reduce the time taken, transaction costs and the leakages among others.

Speaking after receiving the Final Report of the Task Force on Aaadhar-Enabled Unified Payment Infrastructure presented to him by Shri Nandan Nilekani, chairman, UIDAI and the Task Force, the finance minister said that Aadhar would also help in bringing in transparency and reduce avoidable delays. According to Mukherjee pilot projects already implemented include LPG, kerosene, fertilizers and MGNREGS which can be further expanded. He further said tha further said that pilot projects be upscaled and implemented in more areas and in more States.

Earlier during the day, Nilekani made a presentation highlighting the various recommendations made by the Task Force in its Final Report. Nilekani added that a strategic transformation of the governance can be brought about by the using electronic payments across the board. Nilekani also said that the Task Force has recommended a systematic platform based approach for the electronic payments.

The report was prepared by a Task Force was constituted in September 2011 to recommend, inter alia, a detailed solution architecture for direct transfer of subsidy through a payments bridge wherein funds can be transferred into any Aadhaar–enabled bank account on the basis of the Aadhaar number.