Hyderabad: Telangana state will join the list of states which have enacted their own law to make the Aadhaar card mandatory to avail benefits from government schemes.

The Centre had asked states to bring their own Aadhaar Act to cut down on leakages in welfare schemes as per Section 57 of the Central Aadhaar Act or by issuing a GO.

Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Gujarat, Haryana and Rajasthan have enacted their own Acts, while Bihar had issued a GO.

The central Act makes Aadhaar mandatory for any “subsidy, benefit or service” for which the expenditure is borne fully or shared partially by the Consolidated Fund of India. This means that every welfare subsidy or benefit, from fully-funded or centrally-sponsored schemes (where states share part of the burden), is conditional on Aadhaar verification.

The government has named the IT department as the agency draw up the law draft.