Over 3,100 DBT schemes and 360 public services use Aadhaar-based authentication. Yet the bureaucracy that demands Aadhaar from citizens, often the poorest, has resisted linking their own Central Govt Health Scheme cards to Aadhaar.CGHS beneficiaries include serving and retired central govt employees and family members, sitting and former MPs, sitting and retired judges of SC and HCs, accredited journalists in DelhiAadhaar linking “has helped state ensure targeted, transparent and leak-proof delivery while eliminating duplicate and ineligible beneficiaries,” said PIB. However, bureaucrats aren’t walking the talk.What’s must for poor is voluntary for babusThere is no annual verification to weed out dead pensioners or their dependents who might have become ineligible. Two other central govt health schemes, the Ex-Servicemen Contributory Health Scheme and the railway health scheme, have made it mandatory to link Aadhaar.Govt has issued office memoranda making Aadhaar linking mandatory several times starting from June 2015, but has had to withdraw it in the face of stiff resistance from its employees.The last such withdrawal happened in July 2024 when the govt was forced to keep the directive to link CGHS beneficiary ID with Ayushman Bharat Health account ID (ABHA ID), created using Aadhaar, “in abeyance till further orders”.The linkage has since been made voluntary for central govt employees, though it is mandatory for a poor woman to get Rs 300 as daily wage under the employment guarantee scheme.While Aadhaar has been mandated for “welfare schemes funded from the Consolidated Fund of India”, including many DBT sche-mes, babus have been arguing that CGHS is a contributory scheme and not a DBT scheme, despite 90% of spending on the scheme coming from the Consolidated Fund of India. Their contributions amount to a tiny part of the annual expenditure on the scheme.CGHS incidentally has a higher per capita expenditure when compared to ECHS and the railway health scheme. It would be even higher if deceased beneficiaries and ineligible dependents were weeded out. Pensioner cards made at the start of computerisation of CGHS in 2005 remain active in the system without any checks increasing the chances of fraud and misuse of such cards.
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Resisting Aadhaar linkage for 10 yearsJul 2015– OM issued making it necessary to link Aadhaar with CGHS beneficiary IDOct 2015 – SC says Aadhaar cannot be mandatory for welfare schemes and public services outside of LPG distribution and PDS rationsMar 2016 – Parliament told that linking of CGHS beneficiary ID number with Aadhaar is voluntaryJan 2018 – OM makes linking of Aadhaar to CGHS beneficiary ID number compulsory, to be done before Mar 31, 2018Sept 2018 – Court upholds making Aadhaar mandatory for receiving state-funded subsidies, benefits, and services under Section 7 of Aadhaar Act, as it draws from Consolidated Fund of IndiaApr 2024 – OM says “linking of CGHS ID with ABHA ID shall be mandatory with effect from April 1, 2024, and shall be completed within 30 days by all existing CGHS beneficiaries”Jul 2024 – Linkage of CGHS Ben ID with Ayushman Bharat Health Account ID (ABHA ID) kept in abeyance till further orders
