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According to the Economic Survey 2008-09, the government should have a public accountability information system (PAIS) with internet access which will give the information with respect to the funds which are allocated as well as the expenditure along with names of beneficiaries.
"The government in recent years has increased its outlays in the social sector. However, the reach of public and quasi-public goods and services supplied by the state to people still leave a lot of scope for improvement. There are still leakages in the schemes and the benefits in full do not reach the intended target groups of people," the survey said.
"At the same time, some innovative measures have been initiated in NREGS (National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme) to bring in more transparency in disbursements of funds and prevent leakages," it added.
"The PAIS system should be accompanied by an integrated smart card system which empowers the citizen to demand approved/budgeted entitlements as right. The system needs to be built on the identification and issue of unique ID number to all residents."
The survey said that based on this unique ID number (UID) and associated information, all residents should be entitled to a smart card containing specified unchangeable data.
Entitlements will be based on the data contained in the smart card, and services, subsidies and entitlements received would be recorded against this card.
"The UID scheme is a Planning Commission initiative and the initial UID database would be created using the electoral rolls database of the Election Commission of India. This database would be then enriched through linkages with partner databases."
"The UID scheme is a Planning Commission initiative and the initial UID database would be created using the electoral rolls database of the Election Commission of India. This database would be then enriched through linkages with partner databases."
It said initially, linkages would be made with ration card and the below poverty line databases.
