Education department reviews Aadhaar scholarship order

KOCHI: The state higher education department is contemplating if it should withdraw an earlier order linking student scholarships with Aadhaar. The department's reconsideration came a day after the Supreme Court ruled that Aadhaar cannot be made mandatory for accessing public services and subsidies.
This month, the higher secondary education (HSE) department had issued a circular stating that since central government has directed that all financial benefits for students should be brought under the direct benefit transfer scheme (DBTS), all BPL scholarship of higher secondary students would be disbursed accordingly from 2013 onwards.To avail this, Aadhaar number and bank account number of the beneficiaries was made mandatory.
"We had linked scholarship for BPL students with Aadhaar number and bank account to ensure that a student correctly receives financial assistance. However, in light of the recent SC order we will now have to re-think the whole process," said HSE joint director (Examination) Anilkumar SS.
For implementing DBTS, the department was all set to collect Aadhaar number and bank account number (with IFSC code) of all beneficiaries for 2013-14. Incidentally, asking the principals to treat the matter as most urgent, the department had warned that 'any delay in the above process will result in the negation of scholarships to the students for which the principals will be held accountable'.
The SC order came on a petition protesting the issuance of Aadhaar cards to illegal migrants. Before the SC bench passed the interim order on a PIL filed by retired Karnataka high court judge K Puttaswamy, solicitor general Mohan Parasaran and additional solicitor general L Nageswar Rao put up a mild resistance saying the cards were issued on voluntary basis and clarified that it was never meant to be mandatory.