The official machinery in Pathanamthitta is striving to achieve cent per cent seeding of Aadhaar number with bank accounts by May 31 so as to make the district the first in the nation to implement the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) scheme for LPG consumers from June 1.
Talking to The Hindu, District Collector Pranab Jyotinath said he had directed the authorities concerned to ensure Aadhaar seeding and bank seeding by all LPG consumers in the district in a time-bound manner.
Though the district had achieved 99.71 per cent Aadhaar enrolment, Aadhaar generation, excluding duplication, stood at 85.81 per cent.
Mr. Jyotinath said only 59 per cent of the 2,86,000 LPG consumers in the district had made the mandatory Aadhaar seeding and only 33 per cent among them had made the bank seeding to receive the subsidy on cooking gas directly through their bank account as on Tuesday.
“It is important to fix a deadline for achieving a target and, sometimes, you may have to adopt certain hard and fast measures in the larger interest of society. The decision to ensure 100 per cent Aadhaar seeding by the LPG consumers in the district by May 31 should be taken in a positive angle,” he said.
The target fixed by the Union Ministry of Petroleum for implementing the DBT scheme is September 1.
Mr. Jyotinath said the target fixed by the district administration for completing Aadhaar seeding by the remaining 40 per cent of LPG consumers in the district in 15 days was not a tough task.
“The official machinery in the district is with me in achieving the task. The immense human resource with the Kudumbasree Mission too will be effectively tapped to mobilise the people for Aadhaar registration in an effort to achieve the task in the prescribed time frame itself,” Mr. Jyotinath said.