New Delhi: The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) spent more than Rs 9,000 crore over the last eight years towards issuing Aadhaar numbers, Parliament was informed on Wednesday.


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"The total expenditure of the UIDAI since 2009-10 to 2017-18 (up to July 18, 2017) is Rs 9,055.73 crore," Minister of State for Electronics and IT P P Chaudhary said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.


This includes an expenditure of Rs 3,819.97 crore towards enrolment and Rs 1,171.45 crore towards logistics (printing and despatch of Aadhaar letters), he added.


A total of about 116.09 crore Aadhaar numbers have been generated up to July 21, 2017, of which about 115.15 crore have been despatched.


To a separate query, Chaudhary said Aadhaar seeding in the beneficiary database is an important component of direct benefit transfer (DBT) for better targeting of beneficiaries and ensuring such transfer in a transparent and efficient manner.


"The scope of DBT has been expanded to include cash-in and in-kind transfer to individual beneficiaries and other transfer within a programme design," he added.


In pursuance of such efforts, 314 schemes from 51 ministries and departments have been on-boarded on DBT, he said.


For all central government wholly- or partly-funded schemes, the state governments have been requested to implement Aadhaar-based DBT, Chaudhary noted.