Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Wednesday said that the use of Aadhaar and family identity card helped the state save Rs 1,200 crore with elimination of ghost beneficiaries’. ?

He said the Aadhaar and Parivar Pehchaan Patra (family id) have emerged as vital documents to ensure the benefits of public welfare schemes reach eligible people at grassroot levels.

"Both Aadhaar and PPP have brought much-needed transparency to the system by not only identifying actual beneficiaries but also identifying the ineligible ones," Khattar said, while addressing a workshop on recent initiatives taken to simplify and enhance Aadhaar usage.

The workshop was organised by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) Regional Office, Chandigarh, said an official statement. "Today, the benefits of about 150 schemes and services are being given through PPP. This has led to the identification of as many as 37 lakh 'ghost transactions,' thereby saving about Rs 1,200 crore of the State treasury," Khattar said.

He said that generating 134 crore Aadhaar numbers in such a big country as India was a big achievement. "I don't think any other country has such a big digitised database system,” he said.

Khattar said that the Aadhaar has become an important document today, however, he added that the means of authentication via Aadhaar must also change with the change in technology.

“Today, there is a great need to introduce a face and voice-recognition Aadhaar system along with biometrics. Mobile can also become a useful tool for face recognition. There is a need to work swiftly in this direction,” he said.

"In India, we have a culture of considering the person and family as one unit. Taking this a step forward, the flagship scheme of Parivar Pehchan Patra was launched in 2015 for the identification of actual needy families in the State," Khattar said.He said that marriage registration, birth, and death data have also been linked with PPP.

Khattar said that ration cards, old age pensions, caste certificates, birth certificates, and income certificates are also being made through PPP. The CM said that the state government has also revised the income limit of people below poverty line.

Earlier this income limit was up to Rs 1.20 lakh, which has now been increased to Rs 1.80 lakh, to ensure that a maximum number of families get the benefits of the schemes.He said that under the PPP, families having an income of less than Rs 1 lakh, were identified ?and were given jobs and other types of counselling under the Mukhyamantri Antyodaya Parivar Utthan Yojana (MMAPUY).

Under the scheme, families were guided about various schemes with Antyodaya Gram Utthan Melas organised at several places. More than 32,000 people got jobs as a result of such fairs, he said.

Earlier, speaking on the occasion, Dr Saurabh Garg, CEO, UIDAI said that Aadhaar is the result of 10 years of hard work done by the UIDAI. "Today, every person above the age group of 18 years has an Aadhar card. We are also emphasising on Aadhaar registration of children of 0-5 years.

“Our focus will be on enhancing the contribution of the Aadhaar system in realising the Ease of Living vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the next 10 years," Garg said.

(With PTI Inputs)