UIDAI spends Rs 9,055 crore to enrol, despatch Aadhaar numbers

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.

"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.