Powered by 'Kutumba' database, CM Bommai's pet project takes off
When pre-university student S Deeksha received Rs 3,000 in her bank account one day, the girl from Chikkanayakanahalli in Tumakuru district didn't know anything beyond the fact that it came from the government.
Like Deeksha, some two lakh students also received money in their bank accounts and many of them are clueless over the reason why.
The reason behind their good luck is Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai’s pet project Vidyanidhi — an annual scholarship for agriculturists' children studying in PU or ITI, degree, LLB/para medical, B Pharm, MBBS and engineering courses.
Authorities say Vidyanidhi is the first welfare scheme in Karnataka for which the government is using Kutumba, an extensive database that contains a treasure trove of data on families across the state, to automatically identify eligible beneficiaries.
“This is the first time Kutumba is being used to give benefits on a suo motu basis,” Additional Chief Secretary (e-Governance) Rajeev Chawla told DH.
Kutumba currently has data on 5.5 crore citizens belonging to 1.6 crore families. It is further linked to the education department’s database and the Farmer Registration & Unified Beneficiary Information System (FRUITS) that has details of seven million farmers, databases of ration cards and caste/income certificates.
So, the government knows who the farmers are, and if they have any students in their families.
“With this social registry, we are able to generate a list of students who belong to a farmer’s family,” Chawla said.
Till date, out of 13 lakh PU students, the government has found that 3.5 lakh belong to farming households, of whom two lakh have received scholarship money directly into their Aadhaar-linked bank accounts.
Overall, some 17 lakh students are eligible to get various scholarships.
“We've already identified 8-9 lakh of them as farmers' children,” Chawla said. “Some eight lakh farmers’ families are not registered in Kutumba. We’re making an attempt to get them enrolled so that they can get the scholarship.”
A recent government order said the Vidyanidhi scholarship will be given on an entitlement basis, which means eligible students need not apply.
The downside of this is that beneficiaries won’t even know under what scheme they have received money.
Another challenge is that Aadhaar is static data. “Aadhaar is just the financial address and payments are triggered to the Aadhaar-seeded bank accounts. But, if a citizen has changed his or her phone number, how will someone come to know they’ve received a benefit,” Chawla asked.
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