Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) which has enrolled nearly all of India’s adult population since 2010, is now looking to expand Aadhaar to cover a person’s entire lifecycle with two ambitious pilot programmes, a newspaper report said on June 15.
According to the Economic Times report, newborn infants will receive a temporary Aadhaar number to be renewed with biometric data on attainment of majority, as the UIDAI prepares to launch the programmes to deepen its reach countrywide.
It will also combine its data with death registration records in order to prevent the misuse of government benefits through the use of deceased persons’ Aadhaar numbers.
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Moneycontrol could not independently verify the news.
An official was reported to have said, “The allocation of a UIDAI number at birth will ensure that children and families benefit from government programmes and no one is left out of the social security net.”
The linking of Aadhaar numbers with the country’s death registration systems, as well as those of public and private hospitals, aims to curb direct benefit transfers from leaking out.
Officials have told ET that the pilot for these two ( programmes) will begin shortly.
Another senior official was reported as saying, “Biometrics for kids are taken when they are at least five years old. Our teams can visit these new-borns’ families after that period and complete the formalities of registering their biometric, and allocating them a permanent Aadhaar number.”
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Moreover, once a child reaches the age of 18, biometrics are re-registered “as these parameters stabilise by then and remain the same for a (individual’s) remaining natural life,” according to the source, who also added that “it will also ensure that multiple IDs are not generated for the same child”.
Since its launch, 93 percent of people in the 5-18 year age bracket have received their Aadhaar numbers, but barely a quarter of the country’s infants under the age of five are registered with the identification database.
Realising that since Aadhar cards’ inception, the clause to allocate provisional Aadhaar numbers for new-born kids has existed, Ashok Pal Singh, a former deputy director-general with UIDAI said it was “encouraging to see the plan being implemented now.”
