Hyderabad: Aadhaar seeding of revenue data of agricultural lands, property tax data of buildings and vacant land tax of open plots will help identify original owners of properties and flush out benami property holders, said officials on Monday. Section 57 of the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act 2016 states nothing contained in the Act shall prevent the use of Aadhaar number for establishing the identity of an individual for any purpose, whether by the state or any body corporate or person, pursuant to any law, for the time being in force, or any contract to this effect.
When asked specifically about use of Aadhaar seeding data for identifying benami properties of persons suspected of tax evasion, black money and corruption, Mr Rami Reddy said, “The role of UIDAI will be limited to case-by-case verification for all legitimate and official purposes. It is up to the government to use it for whatever legal purpose it wants to.” Aadhaar has also been made compulsory at the Stamps and Registration department for transfer of properties. Around 77.76 per cent of property tax payers in the municipal areas have their properties seeded to Aadhaar numbers in AP. Apart from AP and Telangana Maharashtra is another state that has been working on Aadhaar seeding on a large scale.
Around 97.14 per cent of power connections to residential and commercial buildings were also Aadhaar seeded, which will help to establish the identity of the owner. AP municipal administration minister P. Narayana said, “We are yet to complete 23 per cent of property seeding with Aadhaar. Most of them are outside the country or state or are not available. Based on the name in the municipal approval plan, we are seeding with the Aadhaar numbers. We are conducting a special drive wherein ownership can clearly be established. However, benami property holders’ names will be known only if we reach a certain saturation level of seeding.”
