In a bid to ensure speedy disbursal of benefits, weed out irregularities and bring in greater transparency, the Haryana Government has made it mandatory to link various schemes of the Women and Child Development Department with Aadhaar.
Haryana Women and Child Development Minister, Kavita Jain said that a notification to this effect had been issued under the Haryana Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2017.
She said that the decision would benefit eligible beneficiaries of various schemes and programmes being implemented by the Department.
It would also benefit the employees, including Anganwadi workers, she added.
With an aim to provide a safe and secure environment for overall development of children and women in the State, the Department is undertaing a series of schemes including Mahila Mandal scheme, integrated child develoment scheme among others.
The State Government has also decided to implement “Maternity Benefit Programme” in all districts of the State, with an aim to improve health seeking behavior and nutrition among the pregnant women and lactating mothers. Under this, an amount of the maternity benefit would be transferred to the beneficiary’s bank or post office account linked to her aadhar number in direct benefit transfer (DBT) model, said the Minister.
Notably, in February 2015, Haryana Government had started the direct benefit transfer regime for the beneficiaries of various social security schemes. It is also necessary to link bank accounts with Aadhaar of persons working under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act Scheme (MNREGS) and other central schemes. Till June, Haryana had achieved around 97% target of linking the bank accounts of social security beneficiaries with their Aadhaar cards. Bank accounts of about 22.57 lakh of the total 23.34 social security beneficiaries were linked with their aadhaar cards.