Family ID next big thing for robust delivery of schemes, services: Social Welfare Minister Asim Arun

Asim Arun. Pic/official Twitter account

Family ID -- a database of families with unique identification numbers -- will be the next big technology-based intervention in robust delivery of services and schemes to people in Uttar Pradesh after Aadhaar and direct benefit transfers (DBT), the state's Social Welfare Minister Asim Arun said.

'Family ID' was launched in January this year on a pilot basis for which registration is voluntary. According to official figures, around 44,000 people have enrolled themselves so far on the official website "familyid.up.gov.in.

Family ID is a 12-digit unique identification number carrying details of a family, serving as a central repository of family attributes to automatically determine their eligibility for government schemes and extend benefits to the missing beneficiaries, Arun said.

The database will be used by around one-and-a-half-dozen departments such as education, social welfare and labour that dole out DBT, he said.

"One of the major initiatives of the Uttar Pradesh government is the Family ID which uses the ration card number for identification of a family. We get details of a family either through a ration card or a family register. They get an Aadhaar card which takes information from 17 departments and we get to know if a beneficiary has taken Kisan Samman fund or student scholarship, among others," Asim Arun told PTI in an interview.

"We also get to know which families have not availed the benefits or have been left behind. There are still many families which are not aware of the government benefits and miss those," he added.

Scheme targeting would "drastically improve" with the Family ID in coming years, the minister said.

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"So far, DBT and Aadhaar have been two major technical interventions which have yielded very good results. Now, with the Family ID coming along, we are hopeful that most of the inefficiencies that remain will get erased and we will have a very robust system of service delivery to the people on the ground," the minister said.

Asked if any similar models elsewhere inspired the Family ID initiative, he said the Uttar Pradesh government studied Karnataka's 'Kutumba' initiative.

The Kutumba initiative has been developed as an Integrated Social Information System (SIIS) consisting of a social registry, integrated beneficiary management systems, beneficiary registry, a payment platform and a grievance redressal system, according to its website.

The project aims to achieve suo motu delivery of benefits and services by checking entitlement, identifying eligible residents and thereafter sanctioning/approving the service or scheme.

Asked about concerns regarding data privacy and security, the Uttar Pradesh minister said the government is "extremely cautious" about protecting people's information and like the National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID), the Family ID would not aggregate any data on its servers.

"Data privacy and security are important for us. We are not aggregating any data on our servers. The 17 departments that access this data have API (application programming interface) access.

"This is the example which NATGRID also follows for passports and other services. NATGRID does not have any database of its own. Same is the case with Family ID. For data privacy, we are extremely cautious that details like Aadhaar numbers are not published online," Arun said.

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