eGovWatch: Government to spend Rs 2000 crore on Aadhaar project in 2015-16

Government has allocated Rs 2,000 crore for the Aadhaar scheme in 2015-16.

According to the Budget document, the government has incurred an expenditure Rs 1,617.73 crore as per the revised estimates for the current fiscal. However, the budget estimates of expenditure on the project being implemented by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) was Rs 2,039.64 crore for the current fiscal.

The budget proposal revealed that government has proposed to increase the expenditure on the Aadhaar project by 23.63 per cent in next fiscal compared to the revised estimates of 2014-15. As per the information available on the official website, the UIDAI has issued as many as 77.91 crore Aadhaar numbers to the residents in the country.

When the new government took over last year in May, there were apprehensions that the project may not be continued in the new regime.

However, the government made it clear that it will continue the project and provided Rs 2,039.64 crore for the current fiscal which was higher than Rs 1,550 provided in 2013-14. The UIDAI was set up in 2009 under the chairmanship of Nandan Nilekani.

It was decided by the Cabinet Committee on UIDAI during the UPA regime that all residents would be issue National Multi-purpose Identity Cards under NPR and UIDAI would generate Unique identification number for the entire population. Both UIDAI and NPR were to share the biometric data collected by them for issuing NMIC and generating unique identification number.

The NPR is a comprehensive identity database maintained by the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India under the Home Ministry. Government has initiated the creation of this database, by collecting specific information of all usual residents in the country during the house listing and housing census phase of Census 2011. The UIDAI was to enroll residents in 18 states in the country. Later its mandate was expanded to enroll in four more states.