Aadhaar seeding figures in Hyderabad and Ranga Reddy districts are cause for concern, with Saturday being the last day for the implementation of the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) scheme in the districts, where it has been taken up as pilot project. In both districts, seeding of LPG connections and bank accounts with Aadhaar numbers leave much to be desired.
Till date, not even 50 per cent of the seeding has been done with respect to bank accounts.Only 72 per cent of LPG connections and 46 per cent of bank accounts have been seeded with the UID in Hyderabad.
Figures for Ranga Reddy district hover at a much lesser 68 per cent and 41 per cent respectively.
Officials from the district administration are already in denial, passing the buck to the Central Government and gas agencies.“Seeding of the bank accounts with Aadhaar numbers is not within our purview. We are merely getting data from the Central Government, which we share with the public through the media,” says an official. Agencies which have shown tardy progress on the seeding process are being issued show-cause notices, he said.
Already, 23 agencies have been served notices.
The agencies have been given the responsibility of collecting Aadhaar numbers from the consumers, or Enrolment IDs in case the UID is not available yet.
Drop-boxes have been kept at the agencies for consumers to leave their bank account numbers. Yet, bank account seeding remains surprisingly low.
At a review meeting on Wednesday, Joint Collector of the Ranga Reddy District M.V. Reddy warned that proposals would be sent to the Centre for de-recognition of agencies which fail to reach up to the desired percentage of seeding by September 1.
Officials surmise that the seeding might go up to 75 per cent at the most, with the rest being duplicate and unauthorised connections.