The Aadhaar integration has helped the Chandigarh administration to weed out bogus beneficiaries in social security payments. The savings could be to the tune of Rs 1 crore annually, says a UIDAI official working with Chandigarh regional office.

The pension payments are made under three categories—widow, old age and disabled. The total number of beneficiaries across three schemes is 21,117. Out of total beneficiaries 19,295 have provided their Aadhaar to the department and have been receiving payments on a regular basis.

The remaining 1822 beneficiaries have not come forward so far to claim benefits, even after field visits and other verifications done by the social welfare department with the help of Aganwadi workers.

“If these beneficiaries don’t turn up by March next year, this will lead to savings of Rs 1crore annually, which might be surrendered to the central government,” says the UIDAI official.

The government pays Rs 800 to widows, Rs 700 to senior citizens and Rs 600 to the disabled on a monthly basis. The administration spends close to Rs12 crore annually on these schemes.

Earlier the payments were made once in three or six months. Now the beneficiaries receive pension on a monthly basis, the UIDAI official says.

Aadhaar integration has also made transactions profitable for the administration. The disbursement under social security pensions are made through Sampark centres. Earlier, the government had to pay Rs 8.89 to the centre for per transaction. After integration with Aadhaar and financial inclusion drive by ICICI bank, which had made Sampark centres as business correspondents, the government gets Rs 4 per transaction from the bank.  

The Chandigarh Housing Board (CHB) is using Aadhaar to identify beneficiaries for the allotment of small flats under the slum rehabilitation scheme. “The CHB has integrated Aadhaar with its database of applicants and is issuing allotment letters to the slum dwellers only after the beneficiaries are enrolled with the UIDAI,” says the UIDAI official. The housing board has already issued 6700 dwelling units to the beneficiaries having Aadhaar, the official said.

The UIDAI official says those who don’t have an Aadhaar are not denied of the allotment. They are asked to enroll for Aadhaar and give their enrollment ID, which suffices the purpose. A camp has been set up in housing board’s premises so that the applicants don’t have to run pillar to post.

Similarly, according to admin officials, no beneficiaries are being denied services for want of Aadhaar.

Payments under Indira Gandhi Matritva Sahyog Yojana (IGMSY) of Rs 4000 and Janani Suraksha Yojana of Rs 700 is being made through Aadhaar payment bridge.

Using Aadhaar the administration has also streamlined the process for scholarship disbursement, which has resulted in increase in number of applicants – benefiting more students in comparison to last year.

The disbursal of scholarships to students under nine schemes doubled in a year’s time. The union territory administration disbursed Rs1.5 crore in scholarships to 2700 students this year. A year ago the scholarships were provided to mere 1384 students and an amount of Rs 75 to Rs 80 lakh was disbursed.

Initially when the applications were submitted through schools and colleges lot of students couldn’t apply as these institutions asked for various certificates. In case of unavailability of required documents the students couldn’t apply.

The administration organised several awareness camps for Aadhaar enrollment and opening of bank account. Simultaneously the administration asked students to submit their applications directly to the concerned department.

“A dedicated team working on disbursal of scholarships called students and asked for details where ever they found application forms incomplete,” says UIDAI official.  

According to UIDAI the enrollment in Chandigarh has 101.6 percent coverage – which means against 10.5 lakh population 10.70 lakh people have been enrolled.