Government will launch the payout of direct cash subsidy to people through the Aadhaar based system in 51 districts of the country from January 1, finance minister P Chidambaram said on Saturday.

He said the government intends to complete roll out of the direct cash transfer through the Aadhaar system in the entire country by the end of 2013.

This will, among other things, facilitate the pay out of direct cash subsidies to the targeted beneficiaries.

"We want the roll out (of Aadhaar-based subsidy transfer) to be completed by the end of 2013," he said at the Bancon conference in Pune.

The finance minister noted that the government spends "thousands and thousands of crores of rupees" on pension and various subsidies.

"We are going to launch the ambitious programme of payout of direct cash subsidy to people through the Aadhaar system in 51 districts across 15 states", he said.

Chidambaram said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will take a meeting of the cash transfer committee on Monday in the run up to the implementation of the scheme from the beginning of next year.

Stating that the economy is in a slowdown mode, he said the economic growth is expected to be 5.5 per cent in the second quarter.

"For us 8 per cent growth is not an aspiration. We must aspire for over 8 per cent growth", he said.