Vallabhipur was the first taluka where savings accounts have been linked to Aadhaar card
Bharat Patel, 45, doesn't pick up cash when he goes to the local fair price shop in Mooldharai village, about 180 km from Gujarat's capital Gandhinagar. His thumb impression on the biometric machine is enough; it debits the bill from his bank account. "Now this digital mode takes care of the payment," says Mr Patel. This is how many people in this village shop for their fortnightly rations. And in 52 other villages that come under Bhavnagar district's Vallabhipur taluka, the first in the country where every household has a bank account seeded with an Aadhaar number.
Vallabhipur taluka was the first taluka in the country where savings accounts have been linked to the Aadhaar card, long before the Income Tax department had to extend its deadline for banks to get a fix the identity of their account holders.
It wasn't an easy task, which started last year with a three-month-long campaign by 300 officials from the district administration. It ensured that not only did all 18,500 households in the taluka have bank accounts but were linked to an Aadhaar number. District officials say the number of digital transactions every month has shot up from a 500 transactions in January to 6000 in March.
Not long back, 38-year-old widow Bhavnaben Rathod of Patana village, had to travel 10 km to the nearest bank to collect 1,000 rupees under government's widow financial assistance scheme. But now with her savings account Aadhaar linked, micro ATM at her panchayat office takes care of the payment.
"I had to take a rickshaw and spend money on the travel, leave my two kids with neighbours. It meant lot of inconvenience," she tells NDTV.
"All fair price shops, village panchayats, cooperatives have been enabled with Aadhaar-enabled system which means villagers have a digital options," says Harshad Patel, the 39-year-old Bhavnagar Collector who recently won a pat on his back from Amitabh Kant, the Chief Executive Officer of Niti Aayog, the Modi government's think-tank.