- A temporary Aadhaar may soon be given to infants soon after their birth.
- Aadhaar will also be linked to death records to plug the leak of direct benefit transfer.
- The temporary Aadhaar will be converted to permanent when the children attain five years of age.
The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) which is tasked with issuing and managing Aadhaar to the citizens is preparing to launch two new pilot programmes which may make Aadhaar a part of life from birth to death.
The new programme proposed by UIDAI is aimed at plugging misuse of benefit transfers and offering benefits to children from birth. According to an Economic Times report, new-born infants and death registration records may soon be linked to Aadhaar.
New-born infants are expected to receive a temporary Aadhaar number at birth, which will later be renewed with biometric data. This is aimed at offering government benefits to the children and their families right from their birth.
Similarly, death registration records may soon be linked with Aadhaar to plug the leak of direct benefit transfers.
“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,” an official familiar with the matter told ET.
The biometric data of children is generally taken after they are five years old. As part of the pilot, teams from UIDAI will visit families and collect biometric data of children after they are five years old and provide them with a permanent Aadhaar number.
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“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,” the official added.
The biometrics will be taken again when the child turns 18 as “these parameters stabilize by then and remain the same for an individual’s remaining natural life.”
UIDAI to track deaths
UIDAI will track deaths using city and state databases and the body also plans to approach public and private hospitals for data on deaths to avoid duplication of data.
This move is mainly aimed at stopping the benefits to the deceased, which has become important after the spike in deaths due to the COVID pandemic. “Pensions of people who have passed away recently are still being withdrawn or automatically credited to their accounts as the Aadhaar number is still active. That is undesirable,” the official added.
Verification of records
Another programme being tested by UIDAI is aimed at weeding out duplicates from the Aadhaar system. As part of this, the Aadhaar number will be cross-checked with other documents such as the driving license, passport, permanent account number (PAN) and more.
“A pilot project on cross-verifying Aadhaar numbers with driving licence is already in progress. The overall idea is to allocate and contain the allocation of Aadhaar numbers to one per person and weed out all the inefficiencies from the system to prevent loss to the exchequer,” the official added.
