New Delhi: According to the statement issued by the Aadhaar-issuing authority UIDAI on Thursday, LPG subsidy can be withdrawn by the beneficiaries along with other government payments by continuing the usage of Aadhaar authentication from micro-ATMs at their doorstep.
As per the legal opinion over the Aadhaar Verdict by the Supreme Court, that restricted the use of it, can now be continued to be used by the banks for Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AEPS) facility without any interruption to allow access for the beneficiaries of government schemes to withdraw their entitlement smoothly at their doorsteps.
The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) developed the AEPS payment service to allow banks, financial institutions to utilize ‘Aadhaar’ number and online UIDAI authentication for transactions through their respective business correspondent service centres.
By using Aadhaar and biometric authentication, the AEPS allows transactions and enables a person to perform financial transaction on a micro-ATM provided by a banking correspondent at the beneficiaries’ doorstep.
“Following the legal opinion, UIDAI has asked banks to continue with AEPS facility uninterrupted as this mode of withdrawal is a part of Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) scheme where the use of Aadhaar is permissible,” UIDAI said in a statement here.
According to the Supreme Court verdict, Aadhaar number can be used to provide direct benefit transfer schemes under Section 7 of the Aadhaar Act.
“AEPS is of great help to beneficiaries who live in remote villages. Almost 14 crore beneficiaries under Pahal and Ujjawala scheme receive gas cylinder subsidy in their bank accounts every month,” it said.
The LPG price comes with a subsidy by the government. The subsidy is transferred to the bank account of the user. Beneficiaries of the subsidy then add up this money to buy LPG at market price.
According to UIDAI, there are a total of six lakh villages and only 1.4 lakh of them have brick and mortar bank branches. Many of the living habitations are about 30-40 km from a given bank brand.
“In such cases, beneficiaries can withdraw their money through mobile Aadhaar based micro-ATMs at their doorsteps,” it said.
At present, every month, more than 14 crore AEPS transactions are carried out by around 8 crore people.
In a similar way, MNREGS workers are able to withdraw their wages in their villages through the micro-ATMs of AEPS.
UIDAI CEO Ajay Bhushan Pandey said: “The AEPS system ensures that the government benefits and subsidy money reaches directly in beneficiaries hands and eliminates any diversion by ghosts and middlemen”.
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