-The Economic Times In the race to give each Indian a unique identity number, the government's National Population Register (NPR) project is being steadily outpaced by Nandan Nilekani's Aadhaar project, buttressing a commonly-held notion that a corporate style-run operation is more efficient than a government-run scheme even when both do the same task deploying the same technique. A Home Ministry's assessment of both the projects shows that as on March 31, 2013,...
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Cash transfer put off by at least 3 months -Subodh Ghildiyal & Mahendra Singh
-The Times of India The expansion of UPA's flagship intervention - direct benefits transfer (DBT) - is likely to be pushed back by three months, shrinking the window for fullscale implementation of the scheme that Congress sees as its trump card for the 2014 polls. The scheme to ensure delivery of cash subsidies and entitlements to bank accounts of beneficiaries was launched in January 2013. However, for the scheme to live up...
More »Battle over turf muddies waters-Bharti Jain & Sidhartha
-The Times of India When the PMO was finalizing the direct benefit transfer (DBT) scheme in October using Aadhaar as the basic platform, at least three other agencies suggested they could implement the new plan equally well. The home ministry's NPR plan prompted the government to divide the work of issuing ID cards in two segments, shrugging off the department of financial services' suggestion that banks and debit cards could be used...
More »2 mths to go, 53% national population register work pending -Ambika Pandit
-The Times of India NEW DELHI: With a deadline of March 31, the office of the director, Census 2011, which is supposed to put together the national population register (NPR) has a challenging task at hand. They have to biometrically enrol over 80 lakh Delhiites, which is now mandatory under law. Even those who have already enrolled for Aadhaar UID cards will have to enrol for NPR, as it will link...
More »Cabinet clears new Lokpal Bill-Liz Mathew and Anuja
-Live Mint Cabinet-approved Bill may stir up controversy after it left out a key proposal to bring CBI within its purview On the day that it approved the anti-graft Lokpal Bill, the first murmurs of dissent against finance minister P. Chidambaram’s call for expenditure cuts surfaced in the Union cabinet—over the seemingly piffling amount of `90.38 crore. The cabinet eventually overruled the finance ministry’s objections and approved the infusion of the money for...
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