[Mr Pandey’s elevation is in tune with the government’s determination to make Aadhaar mandatory for availing the benefits of various government schemes and services.]
Babu promoted to champion Aadhaar: It’s another visible indication of just how serious the Centre is about making Aadhaar biometric identity number mandatory, a sceptical Supreme Court notwithstanding. The Centre has promoted the Aadhaar-issuing body UIDAI’s CEO, Ajay Bhushan Pandey, to the position of secretary. Mr Pandey is a 1984-batch IAS officer of the Maharashtra cadre and has been the head of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) since September 2015. The decision was taken by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Earlier too, finance minister Arun Jaitley had sought to make the 12-digit number mandatory for filing income tax returns and Permanent Account Numbers. Since then, the Supreme Court has relaxed its stand and said that Aadhaar should not be made mandatory for seeking benefits but can be used for services like opening bank accounts. At present, there are about 78 schemes, including Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Scheme, Pahal for cooking gas subsidies as well as various scholarship schemes that give direct cash transfers in the beneficiary’s account instead of a subsidy. So ***Mr Pandey’s elevation is in tune with the government’s determination to make Aadhaar mandatory for availing the benefits of various government schemes and services*** [emphasis added]. [Excerpted from 'Delhi ka Babu: Babus Shaken and stirred in Uttar Pradesh', Jul 2, 2017 at < http://www.deccanchronicle.com/opinion/op-ed/020717/delhi-ka-babu-babus-shaken-and-stirred-in-uttar-pradesh.html >.] -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
