New Delhi: The government has now made Aadhaar mandatory for opening of post office deposits and small saving schemes like PPF, the National Savings Certificate scheme and Kisan Vikas Patra.
The existing depositors have been given time till December 31, 2017 to provide the Aadhaar.
People already have to provide Aadhaar for bank deposits, obtaining mobile phone and several other utilities as government seeks to weed out benami deals and black money.
Finance ministry has issued four separate gazette notifications making Aadhaar mandatory for opening all post office deposit accounts, Public Provident Fund (PPF), National Savings Certificate scheme and Kisan Vikas Patra deposits. “The Aadhaar number shall be the unique identifier for the purpose of establishing the identity of an account holder. Provided further that every depositor under this scheme who has not given hisAadhaar number at the time of application for such deposit shall submit his Aadhaar number to the Post Office Savings Bank or Accounts Office concerned, on or before the 31st of December, 2017,” the notification said.
Last month, it had extended the deadline for obtaining Aadhaar for availing government schemes and subsidies by three months to December 31.
Earlier, those who did not have Aadhaar were asked to procure it by September 30.
As many as 135 schemes (of 35 ministries) including the free cooking gas (LPG) to poor women, kerosene and fertiliser subsidy, targeted public distribution system (PDS) and MGNREGA will be covered by the extension.
