The Punjab government has set the target to issue Aadhaar cards to all the people across the state positively y March 31, 2013 to enable them to get all the benefits under various pro-people welfare schemes on the basis of these cards. An assurance to this regard was given by the Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal to the Chairman of Unique Identification Authority of India (UID) Mr Nandan Nilekani here in a meeting at official residence this morning. Interacting with the UDAI Chairman, Mr Badal said that the state government was committed for the timely implementation of the ‘Aadhaar project’ in the right earnest. He said that the government has already decided to disburse the payment of pension/ financial assistance under various welfare schemes through electronic benefit scheme of the banks to check the fraudulent payments to the bogus beneficiaries.Giving the details of the UID scheme, Mr Nilekani apprised the Chief Minister that the basic objective of this project was to ensure the benefits of welfare schemes to the genuine beneficiaries by evolving a uniform system of identification for all the citizens of the country on one hand and to check the leakage of funds to the fake beneficiaries on the other. He further informed that the Aadhaar card has already been accepted as a valid document for identification to get any sort of financial assistance under various pension and scholarship schemes, public distribution system, supply of LPG, registration of land deed etc. in many states. Likewise Mr Nilekani urged the Chief Minister to immediately introduce this system for these citizen centric services in Punjab also.Lauding the governance reforms initiated in Punjab, Mr Nilekani said that such reforms should also be adopted by other states to ensure prompt and hassle free delivery of administrative services to the people in a transparent manner. He said that these reforms were all
the more important in view of state government’s accountability towards people. Enthused by the satisfactory performance of Aadhaar project in the state Mr Nilekani hoped Punjab would emerge as front runner state in the country as far as its implementation was concerned.Taking part in deliberations Food and Civil Supply Minister Mr Adesh Partap Singh Kairon said that nearly one crore population has been covered under Aadhaar cards and the remainder out of total 2.77 crore would be covered by March 31, 2013. He said that a data based technical hub was being developed in the state to ensure uniform distribution of various pro-people scheme under one roof besides monitoring its progress regularly. To ensure speedy disbursement of pensions in transparent manner, the state was soon launch a pilot project in Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar, Fatehgarh Sahib and Gurdaspur. Prominent amongst those present in the meeting included Chief Secretary Rakesh Singh, Principal Secretary Finance SatishChandra, Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister SK Sandhu, Registrar UID Punjab DS Grewal, Secretary Planning Ravneet Kaur and Special Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Mr Gaggandip Singh Brar.