Govt identifies 4 more states for Aadhaar enrolment

The Cabinet Committee on Unique Identification Authority of India has approved the reallocation of four states, including Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Uttarakhand, to UIDAI for carrying out the enrolment exercise in addition to enrolment already carried out by the Registrar General of India (RGI).

The UIDAI and RGI will work out modalities to ensure that there is no duplication in collection of biometrics, an official release said on Monday.

The enrollments will commence immediately and UIDAI will separately submit financial proposals to the ministry of finance in respect of the additional enrollments, it added.

''The enhanced Aadhaar saturation level in the four highly populated states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Uttarakhand will enable roll-out of direct benefits transfer schemes in these states as well,'' the release said.

The UIDAI was established in 2009 to generate and assign unique identity numbers for Indian residents of India and was had been allocated 18 states and Union territories for enrolment. Enrolments in other states were being carried out by RGI under the National Population Register (NPR) process.

As of now, over 57-crore Aadhaar numbers have been generated, facilitating the roll-out of the UPA government's 'game-changer' Direct Benefits Transfer (DBT) scheme in select districts. At present, the DBT scheme covers 28 Centrally-sponsored schemes in 121 districts.