Amid criticism of the government for linking various public services with Aadhaar, the Finance Secretary Ashok Lavasa hailing the biometric identifier programme, has called it revolutionary step and added that using Aadhaar as a platform, the government initiatives like the direct benefit transfer (DBT) in various social sector schemes has helped the government to save Rs 34,000 crore. Further, he said that benefits of Aadhaar should not be undermined as it has brought efficiency in public spending and removed corruption.
Lavasa emphasizing that the use of technology has made the system more transparent, said that the Aadhaar seeding process has enabled to remove bogus and undeserving people. He also said that Aadhaar has huge potential for changing many of the procedures for conducting business and can become the single identity proof for an array of services.
The Finance Secretary further said that the DBT, together with other things, is going to improve public expenditure and make it more efficient. The DBT is an attempt to change the mechanism of transferring subsidies launched by Government of India, which also aims to check leakages of welfare funds.