The Finance Ministry has halved the budget of the government's ambitious project of assigning a unique identity number to its billion plus citizens, report the media.
Quoting sources, the reports say that the expenditure finance committee has cut the budget of the Unique Identification Authority of India, christened Aadhaar, to Rs.3,000 crore from the original Rs.7,000 crore. This move would result in only 10-crore UID numbers in the first phase instead of the planned 60-crore.
Officials refused to reveal the reasons for pruning the budget that could eliminate ghost beneficiaries of development schemes. However, sources say that the resource-crunch due to massive and still-growing spending on demand-driven flagship schemes is a factor. An official said that the recent allocation of Rs.3,500 crore per year for Naxal-hit districts could be a reason.
The head of UIDAI, Nandan Nilekani, of Infosys fame, tries to gear up the process swiftly but has been opposed by the bureaucracy. He has complained to the Cabinet that the process has been delayed as he is not being allotted enough staff.
For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com
May 15, 2026 15:25 ET Apart from the confirmation of Kevin Warsh as the next Fed chair, the main news on the economics front this week included key price data from the U.S. and the first quarter economic growth figures from major economies. Both consumer prices and producer costs have started to reflect the effect of supply shocks due to the Middle East conflict. In Europe, GDP data was in focus, while inflation data from China dominated the news flow in Asia.