India's union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has approved an allocation of Rs 1,450 crore for Aadhaar under the Union Budget for 2012-13.

The FM also increased the rollout target for Aadhaar card to an additional 400 million people in the country. About 200 million people in the country have already enrolled into the Aadhaar system.

Mr. Mukherjee said, "The Aadhaar platform is now ready to support the payments of MGNREGA; old age, widow and disability pensions; and scholarships directly to the beneficiary accounts in selected areas."

He pointed out that the Aadhaar platform would become a central point for all the welfare schemes. A recommendation of a task headed by Nandan Nilekani that subsidies should be directly transferred. The Aadhar system will now be used to transfer funds directly to the beneficiary. Subsidies for food, fertilizers, kerosene, and other Welfare schemes will now reach the population directly.

Under the system, a mobile-based Fertiliser Management System (mFMS) has been designed to provide all the information on fertilisers and subsidies. The system will be rolled out during 2012 and will benefit 120 million farmer families.

As for LPG, Aadhaar will be used for the distribution as all three state-owned oil marketing companies have already launched LPG transparency portals to improve customer service and reduce leakage.

FM looked some of the pilot projects running on the platform and said that they offer good economies in subsidy distribution and benefiting the general population.