Govt plans Aadhar-based payment of scholarships

The Department of Social Welfare is planning to launch Aadhar-based payment of scholarships for students on a trial basis in five districts of the state.

On the recommendations of the Government of India (GoI), the department is planning to hold special camps in these districts for getting students enrolled for the unique identification (UID) numbers.

The trial will cover post-matric scholarship and fee reimbursement schemes for schedule castes and schedule tribes, other backward castes, minorities as well as general category students. Apart from the scheme for general category students, which is funded by the state government, the scholarships of all other categories are partly or fully financed by the GoI.

The selected districts are Lucknow, Kanpur, Ghaziabad, Gautam Buddha Nagar and Agra. The department has asked the collectors and social welfare officers of these districts to identify institutes where the beneficiaries of these post-matric scholarships schemes are in substantial numbers. A meeting for the selection of these institutes in the five districts will be held in January.

The department will then ask the Directorate of Census, Uttar Pradesh, to hold special campaigns for getting the beneficiaries enrolled for UID numbers. All the post-matric scholarships, funded by both the GoI as well as the state government, which are distributed by the Department of Social Welfare in these institutes, will be linked to Aadhar numbers of students.

The Government of India has decided that in the second phase of the Aadhar scheme in Uttar Pradesh, the collection of biometric data for Aadhar number is to be done by the Directorate of Census, rather than the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI).

"We have asked the district collectors to select the beneficiaries of scholarships for the Aadhar-based cash transfer scheme. The scheme is completely on a trial basis and we have not made it mandatory for the beneficiaries to provide UID number because, as of now, most of them do not have an Aadhar number," said Sadakant, Principal Secretary of Social Welfare.

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