Thawarchand Gehlot appointed as Leader of Rajya Sabha

Thawarchand Gehlot, Union Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment was recently appointed as Leader of Rajya Sabha (Council of States). The Leader of the Rajya Sabha is appointed by the party in power at Centre.

This position was occupied by senior BJP leader and former Union Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley in previous Narendra Modi-led government (2014-2019).

About Thawarchand Gehlot

• The 71-year-old Gehlot, is leader from Madhya Pradesh has almost four decades of legislative experience.
• Apart from being an experienced parliamentarian, he is a member & general secretary of ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
• He belongs to Scheduled Caste and is a Dalit face of saffron party.
• He has been a member of state legislative assembly for several terms and has also served in Lok Sabha as well as Rajya Sabha.
• He became a Rajya Sabha member in 2012 and was re-elected to Rajya Sabha from Madhya Pradesh in 2018. This new term of his will end in 2024. A member to Upper House of Parliament has a term of 6 years.

Leader of Rajya Sabha (Upper House of Parliament)

• A Leader of House is a Rajya Sabha member who either holds a rank of cabinet minister or another nominated minister. The Leader has a seat next to ex-officio Chairperson of Rajya Sabha (the Vice President of India), in the front row.
• The term Leader of the House has been defined in Rule 2(1) of Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the Rajya Sabha.
• Gopalaswami Ayyangar was the 1st Leader of the House in Rajya Sabha.

‘Benefits of the Aadhaar – where it stands today’

The Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has released a Facebook post titled ‘Benefits of the Aadhaar – where it stands today’ highlighting how the efficient use of the Aadhaar based identification has aided in improving the governance and in efficient delivery of services.

How Aadhaar has aided in reducing leakages?

The Finance Minister highlights the efficacy of Aadhaar in reducing leakages through following instances:

• The Minister cites that Aadhaar’s use in the delivery of subsidies has helped saved Rs 90,000 crore in the last few years till March 2018 by eliminating several duplicate, non-existent and fake beneficiaries.
• The Digital Dividend Report of the World Bank estimates that India can save Rs 77,000 crore every year by the use of Aadhaar.

The Minister further states from savings through efficient implementation of Aadhaar the government can fund three schemes of the size of Ayushman Bharat.

How Aadhaar benefitted the people?

The Minister notes that with Aadhaar the government was able to eliminate middlemen and the benefits of various welfare schemes were directed to the bank accounts of the beneficiaries. Under the schemes like

• PAHAL and Ujjwala beneficiaries are given cooking gas subsidies through direct benefit transfer (DBT) in their Aadhaar-linked bank accounts.
• 33 crore MGNREGA cardholders are getting wage payment directly through DBT in their bank accounts.

The Finance Minister gave special credits to Shri Nandan Nilekani who spearheaded the Aadhaar in the beginning days and Dr Ajay Bhushan Pandey, who subsequently provided it with the direction and expansion.