UID set to get legal backing

The UPA’s ambitious Unique Identity (UID) or Aadhaar project will soon get the legal backing, as the government is all set to clear a draft legislation, which will be introduced in Parliament during Winter Session. Sources in the government said that the Union Cabinet at its meeting on Tuesday will take up “The National Identification Authority of India Bill, 2010”, which will provide a legal backing to the Aadhaar initiative. The Bill was earlier returned by the parliamentary standing committee headed by senior BJP leader Yashwant Sinha. The statutory initiative was necessitated after a recent Supreme Court observation, in which it said, enrolling in the Aadhaar project could not be made a condition to access government services or subsidies. The Supreme Court had observed that the enrolling in the project could not be made a condition to access government services or subsidies. This has adversely impacted the ongoing direct benefits transfer (DBT) initiative with user agencies such as the petroleum ministry seeking a legal view on how to carry on with a scheme that transfers cooking gas subsidy directly to the Aadhaar-linked bank accounts of beneficiaries. Meanwhile, in order to prepare its ground well before approaching the apex court for a review, the government has also pulled out two significant Supreme Court orders, which have recommended the use of Aadhaar in the past for accessing government services such as the public distribution system (PDS). “Other departments, which have been using Aadhaar for subsidy payments under them, are also being requested to provide data on how the linkage has helped them remove fakes and duplicates from the system,” sources said. Since the top court highlighted the issue of enrolling illegal migrants, data is being also readied to show that 0.2 per cent of people are enrolled without any documents under the introducer system under the project, sources added. The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has enrolled almost 500 million residents so far and has a target of giving the UID number to 600 million people by 2014.