Government of India eyes Aadhaar-based scholarship payments

The Department of Social Welfare is planning to launch a scholarship payment program using state-issued Aadhaar numbers in India, The Indian Express reports.

This new program is set to be started on a trial basis in five districts throughout India: Lucknow, Kanpur, Ghaziabad, Gautam Buddha Nagar and Agra.  On the recommendations of the Government of India, the department is planning to hold special camps to enroll students for Aadhaar numbers to facilitate this new program.

“We have asked the district collectors to select the beneficiaries of scholarships for the Aadhaar-based cash transfer scheme,” Sada Kant, Principal Secretary of Social Welfare said. “The scheme is completely on a trial bases and we have not made it mandatory for the beneficiaries to provide UID number because, as of now, most of them do not have an Aadhaar number.”

This trial period will cover past-matric scholarship and fee reimbursement schemes for schedule castes and schedule tribes, other backward castes, minorities as well as general category students. With the exception of the planned implementation for general category students, which is funded through the state government, the scholarships of all other categories are partly or fully financed by the Government of India.

As reported by the Indian Express, the Government of India has decided that in the second phase of the Aadhaar scheme in Uttar Pradesh, the collection of biometric data for Aadhaar numbers is to be done by the Directorate of Census, rather than the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI).

Article Topics

Aadhaar  |  biometrics  |  civil ID  |  education  |  government  |  national ID