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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Health insurance smart card may be used for NREGS by Vikas Dhoot

Health insurance smart card may be used for NREGS by Vikas Dhoot

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published Published on May 18, 2011   modified Modified on May 18, 2011
The government is exploring whether it can use the biometric smart cards issued for its flagship health insurance scheme to stop misappropriation of funds under its rural employment scheme.

The rural development ministry is in talks with the labour ministry to use the biometric smart cards issued for the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) for identifying beneficiaries of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS).

"I have seen truck drivers come up to claim MGNREGS wages. A biometric identification card could eliminate such abuses," Rural Development Secretary BK Sinha told ET.

There are about 11 crore job cardholders under MGNREGS. The scheme, launched in 2005, has improved rural incomes but is plagued by scandals and frauds. Beneficiaries often get paid without having worked. Last week, the Supreme Court asked federal investigators to probe misappropriation of scheme funds in 100 villages in Orissa.

To prevent duplication, the ministry hopes to ride the RSBY platform, under which 2.34 crore smart cards have been issued to poor households. If implemented, this could pave the way for using RSBY smart cards as a general service delivery tool.

The Orissa government has already begun using RSBY cards to identify public distribution system (PDS) beneficiaries. The state is now examining how the PDS subsidies could be delivered through the same smart cards.

Part of the push for the convergence comes from a government decision to provide health insurance cover to all beneficiaries under MGNREGS who have worked for at least 15 days under the scheme in a year.

But all job cardholders must have an RSBY card for it to be an effective identification tool, pointed out Sinha, who attended a workshop on RSBY in Raipur earlier this month.

The ministry is talking to the Unique Identification Authority of India, led by Nandan Nilekani, which has started issuing 'Aadhar' numbers to the poor after capturing their biometrics in a central database. A convergence is also being sought with the Census Commissioner's office, which is collating citizens' data in a new National Population Register, on the basis of which I-cards will be issued.

"There are certain technical issues to be sorted out. The RSBY is not Aadhar-compliant," Sinha said. "We have to proceed cautiously before taking a final decision," he added. So a technical group is being set up under the rural development ministry to examine the technology convergence required for the use of RSBY cards in MGNREGA.

In the labour ministry, a separate group is seeking to harmonise different biometric technologies used for RSBY cards and UID numbers.

"To include the UID number in RSBY cards, we are changing the software to accommodate the UID data on our smart card chips," a government official in charge of RSBY told ET.

Officials at the Unique Identification Authority of India and RSBY are also looking to co-ordinate their capture of citizens' biometrics in villages, so as to save citizens the bother of having to repeat the exercise on different days.

The Economic Times, 18 May, 2011, http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/personal-finance/insurance/analysis/health-insurance-smart-card-may-be-used-for-nregs/articleshow/8403802.cms


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