Nilekani’s UIDAI seeks million ‘mini-ATMs’ across country

The Nandan Nilekani-headed Unique Identity Authority of India has recommended setting up one million interoperable ''mini ATMs'' in villages across the country to facilitate cash transfers of subsidies and payments under government schemes, and make it easy for people to access their accounts without having to travel to the nearest town.

The mini-ATMs would be operated by business correspondents, creating job opportunities for an equal number (one million) of rural people, the task force on Aaadhar-enabled unified payment infrastructure said in its final report submitted to finance minister Pranab Mukherjee on Thursday.

Business correspondents are persons who facilitate banking and financial services at places where full-fledged banking services are not available.

The panel has further recommended that all government payments over Rs1,000 (to beneficiaries of its social schemes) should be made or received electronically, as this would help reduce graft and bring about greater transparency and accountability.

With the creation of the mini-ATMs, beneficiaries of schemes like the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) and recipients of direct subsidy transfers for cooking gas, fertilisers, kerosene, etc, can receive their payments directly into their accounts at either banks or post offices. These can be accessed through the business correspondents.

The report said that for setting up this network the government should pay the banks a last-mile transaction fee of 3.14 per cent, with a cap of Rs20 per transaction.