The government on Friday said it will extend the UIDAI's Aadhaar enabled payments for various government schemes in at least 50 selected districts within the next six months.

Under the Unique Identification Authority of India's Aadhaar enabled payments, the subsidies are directly transferred into the beneficiaries' bank accounts.

"It will be our endeavour to scale up and roll out these Aadhaar enabled payments for various government schemes in at least 50 selected districts within the next six months," Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said while presenting the Budget for 2012-13 in Lok Sabha.

The minister informed the House that the Aadhaar platform is now ready to support the payments of MGNREGA; old age, widow and disability pensions; and scholarships directly to the beneficiary accounts in selected areas.

So far pilot projects on Aadhaar-enabled e-payment system are being carried out in the areas of LPG, kerosene, MGNREGS and fertilisers.

Currently, a pilot project is on to make payment for MGNREGA in Jharkhand besides a LPG distribution in Mysore (Karnataka) and opening of bank accounts in Tumkur (Karnataka).

There is a similar project on direct transfer of subsidy for kerosene into the bank accounts of beneficiaries which has been initiated in Alwar district of Rajasthan.

Mukherjee said, "These pilot projects show that substantial economies in subsidy outgo can be achieved by the use of Aadhaar platform."

The finance minister also proposed to allocate required funds to cover an additional 40 crore residents under the Aadhar project in the budget.