School education secretary D Senthil Pandian has reprimanded the department officials for slow pace of work on bank account opening, Aadhaar number and its seeding with bank account of the students.
In the review Pandian found that the department has received the Aadhaar numbers of only 1,408 students against total 3,137 beneficiary students of National Means- cum–Merit Scholarship Scheme (NMMSS).
It was also found that bank accounts of only 2,496 students could be opened while meager 294 accounts are seeded with Aadhaar. In the National Scheme of Incentive to Girls for Secondary education (NSIGSE) Aadhaar numbers of only 10,050 students are received out of total 69,344 beneficiaries.
Under this scheme bank accounts of only 9971 students are opened while the percentage of seeding of Aadhaar numbers with bank accounts is a mere 32.3 percent. It is worth mentioning here that NMMSS and NSIGSE are the scholarships awarded by the government of India and both these schemes are under Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) project of Government of India.
The amount of the scholarships would be directly transferred to the bank account of the beneficiary once the account is seeded with the Aadhaar number. The Government of India has asked the state goverrments to complete the process of linking Aadhaar with accounts till August 31.
Pandian has asked the department officers to ensure 100 percent achievement of the target on the issue and for this he suggested that Block level officers should organise special camps with the help of Aadhaar agencies.