An affidavit filed by the central government in the Supreme Court has stated that Aadhaar has saved Rs 90,000 crore of public money since 2014.
It further said that the total recorded savings through Direct Benefit Transfer scheme alone have been Rs 49,560 crore in just two years.
The affidavit filed by the centre provided official statistics on the impact Aadhaar on a multitude of welfare schemes and benefits across the country.
The government quoted a World Bank report of 2016 titled “Digital Dividends” stating that Aadhaar would save $11 billion annually if applied to social programmes and welfare distribution.
The affidavit further added that the total recorded savings to the Government of India through DBT scheme alone has been Rs 49,560 crore in just two years i.e 2014-15 and 2015-16.
The government also provided detail on the instances of how Aadhaar has benefited welfare and pension schemes.
Centre said that seeding of Aadhaar in the targeted delivery of food grains under Public Distribution System (PDS) has led to the deletion of 2.33 crore fake ration cards and saved Rs 14,000 crore up to December 2016.
The implementation of Aadhaar based DBT in the PAHAL scheme has enabled residents to receive the subsidy amount directly into their Aadhaar-linked bank account. In this process more than three crore fake/duplicate LPG connections were weeded out. This has resulted in saving over Rs 26,000 crore up to December 2016.
Seeding of Aadhaar with Jeevan Pramaan has seen 71.17 lakh pensioners use the scheme in 2016.
“With the initiation of e-KYC, over 7.35 crore bank accounts were opened. Total bank accounts seeded with Aadhaar as on May 31, 2017 is 47.25 crore. Jandhan accounts are estimated to cover 99.9 per cent of the households in the country. Of the newly opened 28.44 crore Jandhan accounts, over 18.97 crore accounts have used Aadhaar,” the government said.
Aadhaar have been linked to over 8.80 crore active MNREGS workers of the existing database of 10.38 crore active workers.
“In the National Social Assistance Programme (SAP), Aadhaar have been linked to over 1.47 crore pensioners of the existing database of 2.83 crore. Aadhaar has been linked to over 1.71 crore UAN of the existing database of 11.18 crore UAN,” the government added.
Aadhaar-based digital signatures are allowed to be used in National Pension Scheme (NPS) accounts and for getting a new or updated Permanent Account Number (PAN) card.
More than 73 lakh individuals have availed digi-lockers and uploaded over 83 lakh documents online. Over 47.25 crore people are enabled with door-step banking and this system currently processes over 5 crore transactions every month. Over 1.36 crore residents have received passport using their Aadhaar numbers.
Aadhaar has helped Income Tax payers to e-verify their I-T returns using Aadhaar One Time Password authentication. Over 24 crore SIMs have been issued using the Aadhaar e-KYC service.
Aadhaar Enabled Biometric Attendance System (AEBAS) is now across at 660 organisations with over 2.24 lakh registered employees and over 6000 active devices.
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