The decision of the government to make Aadhar cards mandatory for the people to continue avail subsidies and other benefits will get delayed as a large number of people have not procured the cards in the Valley.
Officials said in most of the districts in Kashmir division, nearly 40 percent people have not procured the Aadhar cards due to which the benefits of schemes like widow, old age pension and the scholarships won’t be discontinued.
“Besides, the Aadhar-based biometric attendance could be delayed as most of the offices are yet to procure the bio-metric machines and even employees have not received their Aadhar cards,” they said.
Out of 2.5 lakh pensioners and 3.5 lakh students getting the scholarships in the Kashmir division, most of the beneficiaries don’t have Aadhar cards.
Director Social Welfare Kashmir, Hashmat Ali, said the government can’t discontinue the benefits to the pensioners and the students who lack Aadhar cards.
“We are linking the bank accounts of people with the Aadhar cards but it will take time before all the beneficiaries avail the Aadhar cards,” he said.
Another senior official said people will also continue to get the subsidized ration under the National Food Safety Act (NFSA) even if they don’t possess the Aadhar cards.
“The consumers, who don’t have the Aadhar cards, will also get the LPG subsidy under the direct benefit cash transfer scheme of the Central government,” he said.
Earlier, in an order issued by the General Administration Department (GAD), the government had noted that in order to ensure punctuality in the offices and provide hassle free distribution of benefits to various sections of public, it has was decided to switch over to the Aadhar based biometric system.
It has been directed that government employees won’t get the wages in case they are not enrolled in the Aadhar-based biometric system.
It was also directed that persons drawing benefits of old age pension, widow pension, student scholarship, stipend, honorarium, wages or any other cash benefits would need to enroll in Aadhar based biometric system and mark their continued eligibility periodically.
According to officials, even the biometric machines have not been installed in most of the government offices.
“We require at least 12 machines in different revenue offices. The machines have to be procured after bids. It is unlikely that the biometric attendance system will be in place before March-end,” said a senior official of revenue department.
In most of the offices, the biometric machines have not been installed while in some offices the machines have become defunct.
