New Delhi: Terming Aadhaar as a “game changer”, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Sunday said savings made through its implementation can fund three public welfare schemes of the magnitude of Ayushman Bharat – the ambitious healthcare programme to provide free hospitalisation to millions of poor people. He also attributed the successful implementation of Aadhaar to the decisive leadership of PM Modi, saying the Congress-led UPA remained “half-hearted” towards it because of its own contradictions and indecision, reports PTI.
In a Facebook post titled ‘Benefits of the Aadhaar – where it stands today’, Jaitley said its use in the delivery of subsidies has helped saved Rs 90,000 crore in the last few years till March 2018 by eliminating several duplicate, non-existent and fake beneficiaries. The Digital Dividend Report prepared by the World Bank estimates that India can save Rs 77,000 crore every year by the use of Aadhaar, he said.
The savings through Aadhaar can fund three schemes of the size of Ayushman Bharat…Aadhaar is a game changer,” Jaitley said. Ayushman Bharat – Pradhan Mantri Jan Aarogya Yojana aims to provide a coverage of Rs 5 lakh per family annually, benefiting more than 10.74 crore poor families for secondary and tertiary care hospitalisation through a network of empanelled healthcare providers.Linking Aadhaarto driving licence to be mandatory
PHAGWARA: Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has said the government will soon make it mandatory for linking Aadhaar with driving licences. Delivering his presidential address at the ongoing 106th Indian Science Congress at Lovely Professional University here, the minister for Law, Electronics and Information Technology said, “We are soon going to bring a law which will make it mandatory to link Aadhaar with driving licence.”
At presently, what happens is that the guilty person who causes an accident flees the scene and gets a duplicate licence. This helps him go scot-free. However, with the Aadhaar linkage you can change your name but you cannot change your biometrics, neither iris nor fingerprints. So the moment you go in for a duplicate licence, the system will say this person already has a driving licence and should not be given a new one,” said Prasad, explaining the need for the linkage, reports. Eulogising about the Centre’s ‘Digital India’ programme, the minister claimed that it had bridged the urban-rural divide.
